


Economic Opportunities Abound

by goodoldfashioned



Category: RedLetterMedia RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bank Robbery, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Lightning Fast verse, M/M, Mutual Pining, Social Media Hell, Virginity Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 15:22:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodoldfashioned/pseuds/goodoldfashioned
Summary: Jay decides to auction off his virginity to the highest bidder. When the situation escalates, Mike robs a bank.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing my last fic about these two, and I had this idea for another one, and now there are 60,000+ words of it! Wow! What is happening!
> 
> But seriously, thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos on the last one, it means a lot. Hope you'll enjoy this one, too.
> 
> This is about the Half in the Baaaaaaaaag characters and their world only.

It’s springtime in Milwaukee and Mike is dead broke. Leaving for work in the morning, he rips another late notice from his landlord off the front door of his apartment and balls it up in his fist. This is all Jay’s fault. After the wedding plan fell through, Mike was still on the hook for all the deposits paid to rental spaces and vendors, plus cancelation fees. He’d thought it would be a breeze paying for everything once that prenup took effect and he had Plinkett’s money. When it all blew up in his face, he couldn’t get out of the contracts he’d signed for ice sculptures, a full swing orchestra for the reception, and dozens of other arrangements that were designed to irritate Jay, all of which are now actively ruining Mike’s life. 

He got so behind on car payments that his old Toyota was repossessed, so he has to walk to work. Despite the nearness of April, it’s still frigid in Wisconsin, and an icy wind blows a wintry mix of evil half-rain, half-snow into his face as he makes his way toward the VCR repair shop. By the time he gets there he’s furious with Jay all over again for reading that prenup and realizing that Mike was trying to scam him. 

“Jesus christ!” Mike shouts as he walks into the shop, shivering and damp. Jay is behind the counter with his coffee cup, looking sleepy. “Hope you’re happy, you fuck!” Mike says, ripping off his hat and scarf. “Got me walking to work in a goddamn blizzard.” 

“What’d I do?” Jay asks, though they’ve gone over this before. 

“They took my car, Jay! I’m walking the streets like a fucking hobo.” 

“Oh, god,” Jay mutters, recognizing this refrain. The financial mess Jay’s not-wedding caused has been Mike’s regular complaint for over a year, though losing the car is new. “Just learn how to ride the bus.” 

“Fuck the bus, I’m about to be thrown out of my apartment.” 

Mike didn’t quite mean to admit that. Jay looks sympathetic, though not appropriately guilty. 

“Here, dummy,” Jay says, passing Mike his coffee cup when he walks behind the counter. “Drink that, warm up. Everything’s fine.” 

“Everything’s not fine, Jay.” 

Mike drinks from Jay’s mug and makes a face. Of course Jay doesn’t use cream or sweetener, just drinks it black like the little freak he is. 

“I’m gonna be late on my rent this month, too,” Jay says. 

“How come?” Mike asks. He passes the coffee back to Jay and shrugs off his coat, still shivering as he makes his way over to his seat. “Did you buy more Gremlin arms?”

“No-- Well, yeah, I did, but that’s not why I’m having money problems.”

“How many of those things do you fucking need?”

“A lot! But the real issue is that I forgot to pay taxes for like five years, and now I gotta pay the IRS fifteen thousand dollars or they’re going to send me to jail. Whoops.” 

Mike groans and mentally strikes the first potential solution to his problems off his list. He was going to try to guilt Jay into loaning him some money, but so much for that.

“Great,” Mike says. “You’re going to debtor’s prison and I’m moving into a cardboard box out in the alley, just in time for the first spring blizzard.” 

“Nah,” Jay says. “We’ll figure something out. We always do! Don’t we have something around here that we can sell for some quick cash? How much do you think I could get for my car?”

“That piece of shit? Five hundred bucks at best.”

“It’s not _that_ crappy. But, yeah, nobody’s gonna pay fifteen grand for it. What do we have that’s worth that kind of money?”

“We, Jay? Since when do the things we own jointly go entirely toward your tax problems?” 

“Fine, asshole. See if I’ll help you out when I come up with some great plan.” 

“Yeah, I’ll hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Let’s face it, Jay. We don’t own shit. You could at least sell your body.” Mike frowns down at his beer gut. “I don’t even got that!”

“My body?” Jay looks down at his chest and then up at Mike again. “You mean for sex?”

“That’s probably what most people would want to use it for, yes.” 

“Sure. I wouldn’t be any good at it, though.” 

“Why do you say that,” Mike mutters, trying not to picture Jay doing various things for money and how good he might be at them or not.

“Well, I mean, I’ve never, uhh, had it. So I doubt I’d be able to give people their money’s worth. Sex-wise.”

Mike stares at Jay, waiting for him to crack and admit that he’s joking. Jay drinks from his coffee and otherwise just sits there staring back at Mike with an earnest look on his face. 

“Excuse me?” Mike says. 

“For what?”

“What the fuck did you just say to me? You’ve never had sex?”

“Nope.”

Again, Mike stares, now wide-eyed. Again, Jay just stares back looking dopily unconcerned. 

“Aren’t you like, forty?” Mike asks, rearing backward in his chair. 

“Next year,” Jay says, nodding. 

“So, what-- What??? How? _Why_?”

“Well, I was born in 1980--”

“I mean about the sex, you idiot! Don’t you want to have sex?” Mike has definitely seen Jay express vague interest in women and more direct interest in men. He’s a regular at the Manhole! He wanted to marry Plinkett!

“I guess,” Jay says, thoughtful. “For a long time I didn’t realize I liked men. I thought I was just bad with women. So that was my twenties. And then I was a thirty-year-old gay virgin, then it took me like four more years to start looking decent, and then I was too embarrassed about not having any experience to really try getting with dudes. Then I thought, what am I even missing? I don’t fucking know. Maybe it’s not a big deal.” 

“It is a big deal!” Without meaning to, Mike springs out of his chair to emphasize this. Jay flinches backward in his own chair, eyebrows lifting. “Jay! Jesus Christ! Do you realize what this means?”

“No?”

“You can charge like ten times what a normal hooker would! You’re a virgin! Oh my god, you’re a petite blond virgin, even! You got the kind of meat that earns the big bucks!”

“Really?” Jay wrinkles his nose, but he’s also grinning, looking hopeful. “You think someone would pay a lot for, uhh--” He glances down at his lap. “This?”

“There’s only one way to find out!”

Mike hops back into his seat and grabs for the keyboard on the counter, trying to contain his excitement. If he tips his hand, Jay will realize that Mike is again trying to make money off of Jay’s sweet little ass and pretty face. For now, Mike will pretend he’s just helping out like a good friend. 

“What are you doing?” Jay asks, scooting his chair over so he can see the computer monitor. 

“I’m making you a website,” Mike says, fingers flying. “For your virginity auction.” 

“For my what now?”

“This is how you’re gonna pay your tax bill, Jay! Let’s start the bidding at, hmmm. A thousand bucks. Then we’ll advertise a little and try to get a bidding war going.”

“Oh, god,” Jay says, watching Mike type HOT TWINK “JAY’S” VIRGINITY: NOW ON SALE!!!! as the site’s title text. “Now the whole world’s gonna know I’m a virgin.” 

“So what? It’s not like you have a reputation to protect.”

“True. Why’d you put scare quotes around my name?”

“It looks sexier that way! Don’t question me, I know all about marketing.” 

Jay grunts and reads along as Mike types more ad copy onto the website’s main page: 

“Available now for a limited time only, this almost-forty year old (yet youthful looking with a healthy glow, see pictures below) innocent Milwaukee farm boy has been saving his first sexual experience just for YOU, potential buyer!! He’s so adorably naive that he can barely even explain why he’s still a fucking virgin! Certainly not for lack of opportunity, because he is so goddamn cute and sexy! (See video below). Place your bid now to get in (literally!) on this once in a lifetime action. Travel to Milwaukee not included with price of virginity-taking.” 

“There,” Mike says, flushed with the thrill of a great money-making scheme as it comes together. “Now we just gotta take some pictures of you looking hot and make a little video where you sexily talk about how nervous you are about losing your v-card.” 

“I don’t know if I can be sexy,” Jay says, wincing. 

“Sure you can! I’ll show you how. Grab the video camera.” 

Mike goes to the front door of the shop and turns the OPEN sign around to CLOSED, then follows Jay into the back room. Jay hands their old video camera over to Mike and stands there waiting for direction. He looks a little nervous already, which will make this video awesomely authentic. Mike has to tell himself again to calm down. Everything about this plan is making him nearly vibrate with excitement. It’s brilliant! 

“Okay,” Mike says, lifting the camera. “Jay’s virginity auction video, take one! Jay, take your shirt off.” 

Jay pulls off his hooded sweatshirt and drops it on the floor. Then he just stands there. 

“Your other shirt, too!” Mike says, gesturing to his Lightning Fast one. “All shirts!”

“But it’s cold in here.”

“Good! That’ll make your nipples hard, people like that.” 

“Eugh,” Jay says. He sighs and starts unbuttoning. “This had better work, Mike.” 

“It will. Slower! Yeah, like that. Good, yeahhh, that’s it.” 

Jay makes a face, still unbuttoning slowly.

“Are you getting off on this?” he mutters.

“Shhh!” Mike says. “This is part of the video. Sell it!” 

Jay reaches the last button and pulls his shirt open. Mike zooms in on his peaked little nipples, one at a time, then out to show the whole Jay’s chest package as he slips the shirt off. Jay has an almost hairless chest except for one patch of blondish hair high between his flat little pecs, and he’s not as ripped as Mike expected, but that’s okay. He’s got the perfect amount of softness on his slim frame. People will love it.

“It’s fucking freezing back here,” Jay says, hugging his arms over his chest.  

“Don’t think about that,” Mike says. “Think about all the space heaters you can buy after someone blows their life savings on popping your cherry.” 

“You really think someone would spend that much on me?” 

“Sure, man! Uncross those arms, you’re hiding the merchandise.” 

“You seem pretty excited about this,” Jay says, eyes narrowing. “I hope you know you’re not getting a cut.” 

“We can talk about my bill for your website design and promotion later, Jay. Let’s just focus on making a great video, okay?”

Jay groans and uncrosses his arms, holding them at his sides. He still looks tense, but maybe viewers will be into that. 

“So, Jay,” Mike says. “Tell us a little about yourself.” 

“Umm, well, I’m thirty-eight years old and I live in Milwaukee--”

“No, no, juicier stuff! I put all that basic shit in the website text already.”

“Juicy? Like what?”

“How about your measurements.”

Jay looks down at himself, as if to consult his measurements. “I’m five foot seven,” he says, somewhat bitterly, when he looks back up at the camera. 

“Mhmm, debatable, but I meant more like your _intimate_ measurements.” 

“Huh?” 

“ _Dick size_!” Mike says, stage-whispering.

“I dunno,” Jay says, blushing. 

Mike gives him a thumbs up. That blush is perfect. 

“Okay, forget dick size,” Mike says. “They probably won’t be after your dick, anyway. And you’re a virgin, so the other measurement goes without saying. So, let’s see. What _turns you on_?”

“Cinematic violence,” Jay says. 

“Ah, so you’re saying you like it rough, huh?”

“No. I don’t know what I like. How would I? I’m talking about movies.”

“Uh-huh. So what’s your favorite, uhh, arousing scene from a movie, then?”

Jay scrunches up his face, thinking about it. Mike zooms in. This is good shit. Jay looks cute when he’s thinking. 

“I can’t pick,” Jay says, but he’s turning redder, like he definitely thought of something. 

“Okay, then not your favorite, just one that you like.”

“Hmm, there are so many--”

“Jesus, okay, just tell us one movie character you’d like to fuck.” 

“Do I have to?” Now Jay’s ears and throat are turning red, too. 

“Yes, you have to! Say it!”

“Snake Plissken!”

Jay flinches after blurting this, as if he wants to slap his hands over his mouth, then looks pissed off at Mike for forcing it out of him. It’s adorable. Primo content for the video. 

“Oh, wow.” Mike is trying very hard not to laugh, mostly failing. “That is. Fascinating, Jay.” 

“Shut up, Mike! You fucker. This is not sexy at all. You don’t know what you’re doing.” 

“Oh-ho-ho, but I do, my friend! This is going even better than I hoped. Okay, next subject. When you imagine losing your virginity to one of our esteemed bidders, how do you think it will go?”

“Fine, I guess,” Jay says, mumbling.

“Be specific! What are your hopes, your fears?”

“I hope I’ll make a lot of money and I fear you’ll try to steal or extort it from me somehow.” 

“I meant more about the sex itself.” 

“Ugh, Mike, I don’t know! I hope it’ll be-- Good. And not bad.” 

“Jay, you uncreative hack. If you tell people what you’re into, that’ll make them more interested in bidding on you.” 

“How am I supposed to know what I’m into? I haven’t tried anything!”

“Nothing, really? What about kissing? Surely you’ve kissed someone.” 

Jay looks angered by the question, then just embarrassed. Mike would feel bad about this if it wasn’t excellent footage for the video. 

“I had fucked up teeth for a long time,” Jay says. “And then it was weird that I was in my mid-thirties and still hadn’t done it yet. So, no. I haven’t even done that.”

“Oh,” Mike says, feeling authentically bad now.

“Kissing looks fucking stupid, anyway. I won’t be offering kissing as part of this, okay? So anyone bidding should keep that in mind.” 

“Fine, Jay. Lots of hookers have that policy.” 

“Don’t call me a hooker! This is a one time thing, not a new career.”

“Of course, of course. Okay, so kissing is off the table. Understandable. Is there anything you think you will like, based on all the porn you’ve watched over the years?”

Jay cringes at the mention of his porn habit. Mike can’t really judge him there. They’ve definitely watched things together that could qualify as porn, disguised as trashy movies. 

“I mean, I’d probably enjoy a blow job,” Jay says. “I guess.” 

“Sure, who wouldn’t! How about giving one, eh? Looking forward to that? Because it’s almost definitely on the menu here.” 

“Yeah, why not. Mike, this is weird. Can we change the subject?”

“Look at this innocent, blushing virgin,” Mike says, zooming in on him. “Folks, it doesn’t get any sweeter!”

“Cut,” Jay says, slashing his hand across his throat. “Mike, seriously. I need a break.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Mike turns the camera off. “That’s probably plenty, anyway.” 

Jay hurries back into his work shirt, then his sweatshirt. He’s still red-faced when they go back out into the shop, and his chair is still pushed over next to Mike’s. He sits in it and watches as Mike uploads the video from the camera to the computer. 

“Oh, god,” Jay says when he sees the close-up nipple shots. “What the fuck were you doing?”

“Selling the goods, baby! I don’t even think we need to edit this. It’s perfect.” 

With the video in place, Mike uses his phone to take a few pictures of Jay to add to the site. None of them turn out well, because Jay looks grumpy as fuck. Mike casts about for something that will get him laughing. 

“You excited about the new _Dumbo_ movie?” Mike asks.

Jay snorts, and that’s a start. “No,” he says. “Why the fuck would I be?”

“It’s Tim Burton! Maybe it’ll be a return to form. Johnny Depp is playing Dumbo, right?”

Jay cracks an almost-smile. Mike snaps a picture. 

“I heard he’s gonna do _Lion King_ next,” Mike says, pulling this out of his ass. “With Johnny Depp as Scar! It’s the part he was born to play. And Helena Bonham Carter is a fucking hyena!”

Success: Jay is laughing. Mike takes lots of pictures. 

With the pictures uploaded to the site, all that’s left is the bid-placing mechanism. Mike imports a free one and installs it at the bottom of the site along with a countdown to the end of the auction. 

“Is ten days enough time to keep you out of jail for tax fraud?” Mike asks. 

“Yeah,” Jay says. “I have until next month to pay.” 

“Perfect. Done! Now we just gotta promote this somehow.” 

Mike has eighteen followers on Twitter. Jay has twelve. They’ve got to start somewhere, so Mike copies the link to Jay’s auction site and types out a Tweet: 

_Check it out! I know this guy, he’s squeaky clean and smells like delicious yellow cake! Wow, what a bargain, get in while you can!! #virginauction #hottwinks #Milwaukee #helpingoutafriend!_

“Now you retweet it,” Mike says. “And write, hmm. ‘Excited to finally lose my virginity to the highest bidder! Rich people are suuuuper sexy! Don’t forget to follow me here on Twitter for auction updates!’”

Jay does as Mike asks and posts, sighing. Mike reloads the auction website. 

“We’ve got our first hit!” he says, consulting the counter he stuck at the bottom. 

“Great,” Jay says. “I hope I can get a couple thousand bucks out of this and not just profound public humiliation. Do I really smell like yellow cake?”

Mike leans over to give Jay a sniff. Jay laughs, so Mike does it again, until Jay is laughing hard and shoving him away.

“Yep,” Mike says. “Yellow cake, hair gel, and pristine virgin goodness. That’s what you smell like.”

“Well, I guess I won’t smell like that last one for long, if all goes according to plan.” 

“Mhm,” Mike says, and something clouds over at the center of him. It’s an unwelcome lurch, like the sudden realization that he drank one too many and is about to hurl. He touches his gut and tries to remember what he had for breakfast.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asks.

“Huh? Nothing. Why?”

“You just turned kinda green. Are you worried about how you’re gonna make your own money?”

“Eh, I’ll figure something out. How about a ten percent cut of the auction take, for my services as your promoter?” 

“How about ten bucks.” 

“Don’t get cheap on me, Jay. That was Hammond’s mistake!”

Jay laughs harder than an old _Jurassic Park_ reference really deserves, but he’s not faking it. Mike cracks him up without breaking a sweat all the time. 

The pukey storm cloud feeling lurches through Mike again, more gently this time. It’s probably food related. Ten in the morning isn’t too early for lunch. 

“We can negotiate my fee later,” he says, standing. “Let’s take a break, that’s enough work for one morning.”

In the back room, they heat up some ramen noodles in the microwave and sit on the saggy old couch, eating out of their laps while a movie plays on Jay’s iPad, which is propped on a stool in front of the couch. This is their usual arrangement, and really how they both spend most of their time. When it’s less cold in here, they’re prone to falling asleep together on the couch and waking long after the shop is supposed to have closed. They’ve twice woken up to attempted robberies in this fashion, but the shop doesn’t really have anything worth stealing. Mike has also woken up with his head in Jay’s lap or on Jay’s shoulder more times than he cares to think about right now.

“What if someone offers a million bucks for your virginity?” Mike asks when the movie has begun to bore him. 

“I’ll fuckin’ give it to them, that’s what,” Jay says, still looking at the screen. “Then I’ll take the money and run.”

“Yeah, no shit, but, I mean. What if you get legitimately rich off of this? Would you still work here?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jay glances over at Mike, brow pinched. “No one is going to pay a million bucks to fuck me. It’s a pointless question.”

“Hypothetically, though.”

“Hypothetically, yeah, if I was a millionaire who could afford not to work at a shitty job, I wouldn’t! Shh, I’m trying to watch this.”

Mike slouches down beside Jay and stares at the iPad screen with glazed over eyes, no longer paying attention to the movie. His mind wanders to that website he made, which has now taken on a life of its own. He checks his phone and sees that no one except Jay has liked or retweeted his tweet about the auction. He’s also lost two followers. 

So everything will be fine. Maybe no one will bid at all. But wait, no, that would be bad. Of course Mike wants a high bid and a successful transaction, so he can try to scam as much of the take off Jay as possible. Yep. That’s it. That’s the ideal outcome, for sure.

“Maybe we should put something on the site, like a disclaimer,” Mike says, his heel bouncing on the floor. “Something that says you reserve the right to reject the winner if they’re really disgusting or whatever.” 

“Then I wouldn’t get the money,” Jay says flatly, still watching the movie. 

“Yeah, well. I guess you were going to marry Plinkett. So disgusting is not off the table.”

“That’s right. You know me. I don’t scare easily.”

Mike fidgets uncomfortably, annoyed by Jay and his stoic resignation. Before today, Jay was resigned to never having sex. Now he’s fine with whoever can pay. What the hell. What a weirdo. Well, it’s none of Mike’s business, except in the literal sense, because he’s planning to profit from it. 

He tries to refocus on the movie, but it’s too boring, some art house crap Jay picked out. Mike’s mind wanders instead to Snake Plissken, and what Jay wants done to him by that type of dude. Is it the eye patch? The flowing eighties hair? No, it’s probably Snake’s stone cold attitude. He doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself and he gets shit done. He’s the type of character who would throw his willing twink down on a dirty mattress and fuck him hard while grunting manfully. Yep, that’s probably what Jay’s after. 

“Where are you going?” Jay asks when Mike gets up.

“This movie sucks,” Mike says, voice tight. He hurries into the bathroom and turns the sink on full blast so Jay won’t hear him frantically jerking off.

It’s nothing to do with-- Whatever. He’s just blowing off steam. It’s a complex situation. He’s aroused by the thought of all the money involved, that’s it.

Or so what if he does like the idea of Jay submitting gladly to a hard fucking on a dirty mattress? And the squeaky little half-pained sounds he might make while someone with a big dick hammered his virgin ass? It’s not the end of the world. Mike is no homophobe. He ain’t afraid of no gay thoughts. Sexuality is fluid! 

This seems very literal as Mike comes into the sink with a groan that he mostly muffles against his palm, his other hand still working on his dick. When he’s finished he tries to get his brain back online while also not thinking too much about what just happened. He washes his hands and avoids looking at himself in the cloudy mirror over the sink. 

It’s been an eventful day, that’s all. Things are in motion. Exciting times. Mike leaves the bathroom and avoids Jay’s curious stare as he makes his way back out into the shop. He goes to the computer and reloads the auction website. It now has three hits.

Mike should be glad about this. He is, he’s ecstatic! He’s not sure where the corresponding awfulness is coming from, like he just swallowed a huge rock. Maybe it’s his fear that if this does somehow make Jay rich, he’ll quit the job and Mike will be stuck here alone. 

But Jay is right: that’s crazy talk. Jay is cute and all, maybe uniquely so, maybe the only man in the world that Mike has ever fantasized about while beating off, and maybe today wasn’t the first time, but with only 28 Twitter followers between them, their circle of influence is small. 

How far could word really spread?


	2. Chapter 2

Mike sleeps poorly that night, and has weird dreams that he can’t quite remember when he wakes to another frosty morning. He lingers in bed well past the time when he should be rising to get ready for work, dreading the day more than usual. He gropes for his phone on the side table and almost falls out of bed when he sees that he has over a hundred Twitter notifications. 

“Holy shit,” he mutters, scrolling through them. They’re all reactions to his tweet about Jay’s auction. A couple of them are what he expected, either making fun of Jay for being a loser or saying he’s hot. Others are weirdly political, people arguing about sex workers’ rights and the horrors of late stage capitalism, millennials being desperate for money. Is Jay even a millennial?

He sends Jay a text message: _Did you see this Twitter shit??_

Jay responds quickly: 

_Yes. I have two hundred and eighty-nine new followers. WTF._  
_Where are you?_  
_Are you coming to work today?_

Mike assures him that he is and clambers out of bed. His heart is racing. He’ll wait until he gets to the repair shop to check Jay’s auction website. Probably nobody has bid yet. People are just enjoying being assholes to each other on Twitter, par for the course. 

There’s no snow falling this morning, just overcast skies and stinging cold. Mike finds it less noticable today, and the walk to work seems to pass quickly. He’s a little breathless when he crashes into the shop to find Jay sitting in his seat, behind the computer. 

“Hey, guess what,” Jay says. “I got two bids! It’s up to twelve hundred bucks already.” 

“Get out of my chair,” Mike says, not sure why he feels punched by this information. 

“Geez, fine.” Jay moves over to his own seat. “Anyway, maybe you were right about this being a good idea. I doubt I could get the whole fifteen thousand this way, but maybe it could get up to, like, three thousand? Five? If people keep promoting my site by arguing about it on Twitter.”

Mike says nothing and sits down to consult the website. It has hundreds of hits now, and there are indeed two confirmed bids. The bidding function has collected valid payment information via PayPal, but the bidders’ identities are anonymous for now, and the money won’t be collected until the auction ends and somebody wins. 

“I have a bunch of DMs on Twitter,” Jay says, staring at his phone now. “Should I answer them?”

“What are they asking?” 

“Uhh, some of them are just insults. I guess I’ll block those people. Some people are saying they wish they had enough money to make a bid. One guy is asking for lewd photos of me.” 

“Tell him those come at a price.”

“No!” Jay laughs and punches Mike’s shoulder. “What are you, my pimp? I’m telling him to bid on the auction if he wants to see the goods. I’m not branching out into micro-whoring transactions.” 

Jay types out this response while Mike opens his Twitter page in a new tab on the computer, miserably watching as the tweet advertising the auction gains likes and retweets at a steady pace. What is happening? He should be popping open some champagne in anticipation of his forthcoming payday. Instead he feels like smashing the computer monitor, as if that would destroy the website.

“Someone’s asking me to do an interview about male sex workers,” Jay says, squinting confusedly at his phone. 

“You should do it,” Mike says. “To promote the auction.” 

“But what the hell do I know about sex work? The whole point of this thing is that I’m a virgin.”

“Well, technically you’re now also a sex worker. Maybe they want the perspective of somebody who’s brand new to the game.”

“Ugh.” Jay tosses his phone onto the counter as if it’s contaminated. “I hate being the center of attention. Maybe that’s why I’m still a virgin. I’d rather sit off to the side and watch.” 

“Of course you would, pervert,” Mike says. He has to fight a mental image of Jay jerking off in the corner of a bedroom while a random couple has sex on the bed. “But I bet you’re gonna love sex. After you know how good it is, you’ll want it all the time.” 

Jay shrugs. “Maybe. I’m just glad somebody bid on this thing at all. I was kinda worried nobody would. That’d have been pretty embarrassing.” 

Mike withholds a comment about how ridiculous that fear was. Jay takes on a kind of confident glowiness when someone is flattering him, but he still seems to partly see himself as the dumpy goofball who got interviewed and hired alongside Mike eight years ago when the repair shop opened. He’s still a goofy little fuck but he’s come very far from dumpy and could have his pick of guys at the Manhole or wherever else. Mike supposes that the thirty-some years of being an awkward beanpole and then a slouchy frump has something to do with Jay’s lack of confidence in the seduction department. He started taking care of his appearance around the time he came out as gay to Mike, in a drunken mumble about how he was a ‘late bloomer.’ Mike had never really thought of Jay as gay before that, but somehow it also didn’t seem like new information. 

“When’s this guy coming by to interview you about being a sex worker?” Mike asks, wondering what sort of douche hole has a job where he does things like that.

“I dunno,” Jay says. “I told him to email me his questions.” 

“Jay, we need to get this on camera! We should publish more videos to keep this thing rolling.” 

Mike quite enjoyed making that video of Jay the day before. In fact, it was the last thing he’d enjoyed about all of this. When the actual auction started he’d instantly wanted to go back to the video-making part, which had combined two of his favorite things in the world: telling Jay what to do and watching him obey every command faithfully.

“Now that you have all these Twitter followers, you should do daily video updates,” Mike says, nodding to himself. “You can talk about the auction progress and your feelings and shit.” 

“But I hate talking about my feelings,” Jay says, wilting.

“So what? This is like your job, Jay, something you’re doing for money, and having a job means doing shit you hate because you need money to live.”

Jay groans. “I suppose you’re right.” 

Mike goes into the back room for the camera. Once he’s got it pointed at Jay he feels better, more in command of this situation that is already spiraling into weird places. 

“So, Jay,” Mike says when he’s rolling. Jay is still sitting in his chair and still wearing both his work shirt and the hooded sweatshirt, but they can go with a simple setup for now. “How are you feeling on day one?”

“Isn’t this day two?” 

“No, yesterday was day zero. This is day one.” 

“Ah.” 

“So how are you feeling?!”

“Oh, uhh. Excited?”

“Ooh, yeah? Tell me more. Excited about getting it on with the winner of the auction?”

“Sure. And the money.”

“Shhh, don’t say that! I’ll have to edit that out. Never mind, next question. How are you preparing yourself for the big day?”

Jay reels backward a little and makes a face. “What do you mean?”

“You know, emotionally, physically, things like that.”

“I haven’t done anything yet. Should I be?”

Mike’s throat goes dry at the thought of how he might answer that. It occurred to him last night, while tossing and turning in bed, that he could offer Jay beginner sex lessons to help him get ready for the big day. It also occurred to him that doing so would probably come off as weird and lecherous rather than helpful. 

“Nah, maybe you’re right,” Mike says after he’s cleared his throat. “You’ll want to go in this completely green so that our winner can get the full blushing virgin experience.” 

“Right.” Jay looks nervous now, which is great. Mike walks a little closer with the camera. 

“How do you think not being a virgin anymore will change you?” Mike asks. 

“Hopefully not at all?”

“Why do you say that? Maybe it will enhance your life! Open up a whole new dimension!”

“Yeah, maybe. But I also like my life how it is.” 

“Don’t you get lonely?” Mike asks, without thinking. 

Jay shakes his head and frowns. “How would I get lonely?” he asks. “I’m always with you.” 

“No, but--” Mike’s mouth is dry again, what the fuck? He needs a beer, though it’s not yet noon. “I mean at night,” Mike says, zooming in on Jay’s face as his cheeks begin to go pink. “In bed, in your apartment.” 

“I dunno,” Jay says, mumbling. “I guess, sometimes. Like, if I have a nightmare. Yeah, that’s-- One time, maybe. That I wish somebody was there. Uhhh, but can you edit that out, too? It’s not really about sex.” 

“Sure,” Mike says, though he thinks maybe they should leave it in. They might not be talking about sex, but the idea of Jay waking up alone and frightened after a bad dream may be extremely arousing to some people. They might enjoy the fantasy that they would show up to comfort him with their big strong arms and the reassuring largeness of their dick.

Mike turns the camera off, though they didn’t really get much great footage. It was better with Jay’s shirt off, of course. He puts the camera on the counter and goes into the back to grab a couple of beers from the fridge, feeling very in need of one suddenly.

“Starting early today?” Jay says, accepting one of the bottles. “Fine by me. This shit is freaking me out a little.” 

“We can take the page down if you want,” Mike says, reaching for the keyboard with his free hand as if he’s ready to delete it right now. “You don’t have to go through with it.”

“No, I want to. It’s not even the sex part that’s freaking me out, it’s all these people wanting to know shit about my life. Did you see the replies to my Twitter post? People were asking me all kinds of crap about my childhood and my ‘issues’ and if you’re making me do this.”

“Me?” Mike flips the cap off his beer and frowns. “Why, because they heard my voice on the video?”

“Yeah, and apparently they think you’re being pushy. I told them you’re my friend and just helping me out.” 

“Uh huh.” Mike gulps from his beer, finishing a third of it in a few enormous swallows. “Yeah, fuck those people. Just ignore ‘em.” 

Mike changes the subject so that Jay will calm down. They talk about the new Quentin Tarantino movie that’s coming out in the summer. Mike shows Jay pictures of the posters on his phone. By the time they’ve both finished a beer Jay is smiley and normal-seeming again. Mike is calmer, too, until he thinks about the fact that this summer, when they inevitably go to see that movie together, Jay won’t be a virgin anymore. The thought bothers him, and the being bothered by it bothers him even more. What does it matter, anyway? It’s not like he even knew or cared that Jay was a virgin before yesterday. He’ll be the same old Jay, post-sex. Right?

“Is there anything you want to ask me about sex?” Mike blurts after three more beers. The light is dimming outside, so the work day is nearing an end, probably.

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” Jay asks instantly, as if he was waiting for this question.

Mike howls with laughter, then realizes Jay is serious. 

“No,” Mike says, feeling guilty. It’s not such an outrageous question, considering some of his recent jerk-offs. “Only women.” 

“Well, I doubt a woman will buy me, Mike, so you probably can’t give me any useful information.”

“Could you even get it up for a woman if she did buy you?” Mike asks, squinting. 

Jay shrugs. “Didn’t go great in the past, so probably not. Hey, check the site. Have there been more bids?”

Mike groans as if this is asking a lot and shifts back over toward the computer, knocking a few empty beer bottles over in the process. He reloads Jay’s auction site and cranes his neck toward the screen, confused. 

“Um, this must be glitching,” Mike says. “This says--”

“Fifty thousand dollars?!” Jay shouts, leaning over Mike to grab both sides of the monitor and turn it toward his face. “Holy shit! Also, what the fuck!”

“Hang on, hang on, just. Let me check, uhh. Something might have gone wrong with the coding here.”

Mike checks the updated bid history, heart pounding. There are five bids total now: the third one was for two thousand dollars, the fourth for two thousand and five hundred, and then there’s this insane fifth one from out of nowhere, burying the others. Fifty thousand, verified. It’s also signed, this new top bidder having chosen not to remain anonymous.

“Harry S. Plinkett!” Jay reads while Mike sits there dumbfounded, feeling the color drain from his face. “Well, I guess he does have the money.” 

“But that volcano god forbade it!” Mike says. He’s waiting for this to feel like good news: more of Plinkett’s money than Jay needs for his tax bill definitely translates to financial opportunity for Mike. With this kind of cash flowing in, Mike could skim plenty off the final take. But the idea of Plinkett creeping into the bidding war seems fucked up and bad all the same.

“Xandu forbade Plinkett from marrying me,” Jay says, sitting back in his chair. He’s a little red-faced but doesn’t look upset. “But he didn’t make any decrees about fucking me for money. Remember, Plinkett paid for prostitutes all the time. I guess it’s allowed!”

“He’s messing with us somehow,” Mike says, glaring at the words HARRY S. PLINKETT on the bidding page. “This stinks to high heaven, Jay.”

“How come? He really wanted to fuck me, enough that he was gonna marry me. I told him we couldn’t do anything physical until marriage.” 

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re disgusted by him, of course!”

“Eh, he grew on me. Mostly I was nervous I’d be bad at it and he’d dump me.”

“Oh, bullshit, Jay! This is fucking insane.” 

“Why are you freaking out? Isn’t this good? My problems are over! All’s I gotta do is have sex with someone I already know, then collect that fat paycheck. It’s the best possible outcome, really.”

“That’s exactly why it’s too good to be true!” Mike says, though it doesn’t feel good at all to him. “Get your coat, Jay.”

“What for?”

“We’re going to Plinkett’s right now, to ask him what the hell he’s up to.”

“Okay.” Jay shrugs and slides out of his chair, stumbling a little. “But what he’s up to seems pretty obvious to me. He’s bad with money and he likes gay sex, also me in particular, so how’s this out of character? Also, I’m too drunk to drive.” 

“Fuck! Me too. And I can’t afford an Uber. We’ll take the bus.”

Night is falling as they make their way toward the nearest bus stop, the clouds breaking here and there to show the last of the sunlight as it sharpens to a burning orange. Mike has no idea how to access the timetable for the local buses, and he’s already cursing under his breath as the cold closes around them. Jay seems patient, meanwhile, and is even smiling to himself a little.

“What the fuck are you so happy about?” Mike asks, elbowing him. “You seriously want that old man’s dick?”

“I dunno,” Jay says. He makes his scrunched-up thinking face. “It does seem pretty crazy now, that I wanted to marry him. But, Mike! The money! If this works out, I don’t have to go to jail for tax crimes! I can pay my rent! I could take a vacation, even. Maybe I could even loan my deadbeat best friend a couple hundred bucks.” 

Mike shakes his head. “Plinkett is crawling with diseases. Your hospital bills will well exceed fifty grand.” 

“Eugh,” Jay says, spirits visibly dampening. “Well, there’s always condoms…” He elbows Mike. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this? I just offered to theoretically loan you money, and you’re trying to convince me not to earn that money? What kind of alternate opposite world universe is this, suddenly?”

“Look, there’s the bus!” Mike says, pointing. His face is hot, and the bus looks like an angel of mercy as it trundles toward them. He doesn’t have to explain himself to Jay, goddammit. This just seems like a disaster waiting to happen, and he’s betting that once they confront Plinkett they’ll uncover ulterior motives that are intended to screw them both over, and not in the way that the bidders are supposed to want to screw Jay.

Jay covers bus fare for both of them, counting out spare change that he collected from under the couch cushions in the repair shop before they left. They stumble drunkenly into seats near the back of the bus, Jay taking the window seat and Mike slumping beside him, arms crossed over his chest. The sun goes down completely as the bus heads in a direction that Mike can only hope is vaguely near Plinkett’s neighborhood. He feels tired and irritable and like he’d rather be back on the couch watching movies with Jay, but something must be done about Plinkett’s brazen takeover of this virginity auction. This is not how Mike thought it would go, though increasingly he feels like he never took it seriously as a thing that was actually happening at all, at least not insofar as how he would feel about sitting back and watching people bid on Jay while the timer over the auction’s end date counts relentlessly down toward zero. 

When they’re within a few blocks of Mr. Plinkett’s street they get off and trudge through the increasingly cold night toward the old dump where they’ve been a million times-- Or, the expensively recreated version of the one they’d been in a million times, anyway. How many times has Mr. Plinkett come into ridiculous sums of money only to blow it on nonsense and still be living in this shit can house that he somehow loves? What a waste, what a fucking waste! Mike is livid when he pounds his fist on the house’s front door.

“Don’t yell at him or try to kill him or anything,” Jay says in a whisper when they hear the old man’s pained gait as he thumps across the floor inside with his cane. “If you piss him off he might withdraw his bid.” 

“Jay, there’s no way he’s actually planning on giving you fifty grand for your ass fair and square. He’s up to something, and I’m gonna find out what.”

Jay rolls his eyes but doesn’t otherwise protest. Mr. Plinkett pulls open the door and gives them both a once over from behind his ever-present sunglasses. 

“You two,” Plinkett says. “What a coincidence. I just found your website a few hours ago,” he says, gesturing to Jay with his cane. 

“Yeah, I saw,” Jay says. “Fifty thousand dollars, really? Harry, I’m flattered.”

Mike cringes away from Jay and makes a protracted gagging sound of utter disgust. Jay and Plinkett don’t seem to notice, or care.

“Fifty thousand, you say?” Plinkett says, cupping a hand around his ear and leaning toward Jay. “Oh, well, I meant to enter five thousand. Guess I threw in a few too many zeroes. Well, no matter. I’m good for it, and this way no one will outbid me! Get in here, sweetcheeks, you must be freezing.” 

“You can’t fuck him right now!” Mike bellows, so loud that both Plinkett and Jay flinch away from him. “The auction’s still going, you dirty old fuck! Someone might still outbid you, we’ve got nine more days!”

“‘I ain’t trying to get laid right this minute, son!” Plinkett says, glowering at Mike from behind his glasses. “I just had Taco Bell for dinner and I’m in no state for love-making, believe me. I only meant for you to come in and-- Wait, why are you two here, anyway? Ain’t it after your house calling hours?”

“We wanted to make sure you were serious about your bid,” Jay says. He tugs on Mike’s sleeve and pulls him into Plinkett’s house as Plinkett steps out of the way. “Also, uh, to thank you! For your interest in, um. The product?”

“Product, ha, sure! I been real miserable this past year, thinking about how close I came to having you, my tiny prince. This is the perfect loophole! Xandu don’t give a fuck if I pay for it. Hell, he might be down for a threesome.”

“Uh, that would cost extra,” Jay says, giving Mike an anxious glance. 

“Yeah, like a million bucks extra,” Mike says. “You’re not taking Jay to the astral plane. You’re not necessarily taking him anywhere. He’s become a real hot ticket in the past twenty-four hours, in case you hadn’t noticed.” 

“How’d you even hear about the auction?” Jay asks. He takes his usual seat in front of Plinkett’s busted old TV while Mike paces around nearby, too agitated to sit. “Do you have Twitter?” Jay asks Plinkett, who settles into his green armchair with a groan. 

“Do I have what now?” Plinkett asks. “If it’s sexually transmitted, the answer is probably yes, but don’t worry, baby. I wouldn’t be payin’ fifty thousand bucks for you if I didn’t think you were worth a condom.” 

“How did you find the auction site?” Mike asks, refusing to think about Mr. Plinkett struggling to open a condom packet with his gnarled old hands, let alone what comes next.

“Oh, well, I do a Google search for ‘hot twink Jay’ pretty much daily as part of my masturbation routine. And suddenly, there you were! My Jay!”

“He’s not your Jay!” Mike says. “Asshole!” he adds, instead of: he’s mine! It’s not technically true, but on some kind of vague spiritual level he thinks he has a valid claim. 

“Well, he was!” Plinkett says. “Almost for good! Anyway, wish me luck. I got fifty thousand more bucks I can throw into the pot if somebody else tries to steal you out from under me. Ha-- Literally!”

“Are you saying you’d go up to a huh-hundred thousand dollars?” Jay says, eyes bugging out. “If it came to that?”

“Sure am, my darling. That’s basically all the money I got, and what else do I have to spend it on? When you’re immortal and also old as fuck, your pleasures are few and very valuable. Oops, but maybe I shouldn’t have spilled the beans. Don’t you two go artificially inflating the auction now!” Plinkett lifts his cane and points it accusingly at Mike. “If I investigate the results and find out you two frauds put in phony bids to max out my offer I’ll sue your asses!”

“Oh, shut up,” Mike says, waving his hand through the air. “We’d never do anything like that.” 

“Huh, yeah, right. Anyway, I’m serious. If I win him it’d better be above board, or you won’t see a dime.” 

“Gee, Mr. Plinkett, you sure are a romantic,” Mike says, sarcastic. “What difference would how much you paid make if you got what you wanted in the end?”

“I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it if I knew I was sticking my dick in someone who’d robbed me blind! Again!”

“Relax!” Jay says. “Fifty thousand will definitely win. No way in hell is anybody going to offer more than that.” 

“How do you know?” Mike asks. At this point he feels like any-fucking-thing could happen, and he doesn’t like the feeling.

“Nobody else has such a personally vested interest and--” Jay lifts his hand to his mouth and angles it toward Mike, stage-whispering, “--And is also an insane old pervert who’s dumb as shit.” 

“You’re the one who wanted to marry him!” Mike shouts, enraged. 

“You know I like weird, disgusting things. Mike! Why are you yelling at me?” Jay is still stage whispering. Plinkett seems to have nodded off, meanwhile.

“Never mind.” Mike kicks a pile of old newspapers across the room, awakening Plinkett. 

“Huh? Wha-- Oh, you two are still here.” Plinkett struggles out of his chair, grunting. “If you’re not gonna make yourselves useful and work on my VCR, hit the road! Unless you want to come spoon with me in bed, my love,” he adds, talking to Jay. 

“Uhh, thanks for offering,” Jay says. He looks a little queasy, which is the sanest response he’s had to any of this so far. “But I haven’t even had dinner yet. It’s like six o’clock.” 

“Oof, way past my bedtime! Well, goodnight, boys. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be seeing you again soon, babydoll,” he says, making a lewd, feline clawing gesture at Jay.

“Sure,” Jay says, glancing at Mike, who is suddenly too depressed to speak. “Well, we’re off, then. C’mon, Mike. Let’s go get something to eat.” 

They walk back to the bus stop in silence. Mike feels completely sober now, and is aching to feel the opposite of that. There’s no bus in sight, so instead of waiting there like a dumbass in the cold he heads across the street to the nearest bar. Jay follows him in without a word and takes a seat next to him at the bartop, which isn’t crowded. 

“Is something the matter?” Jay asks after they’ve both ordered the cheapest beer on draft. 

“Nope,” Mike says. Something definitely is, but he can’t put a name to it, so he might as well just get drunk. Maybe the truth will thusly come tumbling out. “Just feel like getting hammered.” 

“M’kay. Me too.”

The bar is a dive, musty-smelling and dimly lit with sports playing on old TVs mounted on either end. Mike pretends to watch a hockey game that he doesn’t give a shit about while he drinks beer after beer, Jay matching him for every refill and hovering at his side, giving him curious looks. 

“S’pretty good how this is turning out,” Jay says after three and a half beers, nudging Mike with his shoulder. “You had a good idea. Are you, are-- Are you mad I’m making money off your idea?”

“No,” Mike says. “You’re the one who has to fuck him.” He shudders at the thought, and it’s not even a fake shudder designed to insult Jay.

“Then why’re you mad at me?” Jay asks, poking him in the shoulder like a kid, drunk enough now to admit he wants Mike’s attention. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Mike says. It’s true, unfortunately. “I’m just watching the game.”

“Oh, fuck you, you don’t care about the Blackhawks or--” Jay squints at the TV. “Those other ones.”

“What do you want from me, Jay? You got everything you wanted, as usual.”

“Pfffff!” Jay says, wetly enough that some of his spit lands on Mike’s cheek. “As usual? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, forget it. I’m just stuck with my money problems while you’re a wealthy man, suddenly. It ain’t fair.” 

“Oh, I think I spit on you,” Jay says, reaching over to wipe it off. “Anyway, I told you, with this much money I can give you a loan, okay? You don’t have to get kicked out of your apartment. And even if you did, you could sleep on my couch.”

“Quit bragging about how nice you are, Jay.”

“I’m not bragging. I’m not even nice! Are you mad because I didn’t want your stupid sex advice? Fine, give it to me.”

Mike turns to look at Jay. Something about him saying, _give it to me_ has a real ring to it. 

“You can’t handle my sex advice,” Mike says, the frigid angry thing in him beginning to thaw. It’s not like Jay did anything wrong, really, and he’s still tugging at Mike’s sleeve like a needy little brat, visibly distressed by Mike’s weird mood. “It would burn your virgin ears,” Mike says, leaning over to mutter this like a secret. 

Jay laughs. “Yeah, okay. You think I don’t know about sex? I have seen every kind of depraved pornography imaginable. As you well know.”

“Let me tell you something, Pollyanna,” Mike says, swivelling his bar stool toward Jay’s. “There’s a big difference between watching some freaks in a John Waters movie fuck and actually getting down to business yourself.” 

“No shit, all’s I’m saying is that I doubt anything you could tell me about sex would shock me. _Nothing_ shocks me, Mike.” 

“You seemed kinda shocked that Plinkett is willing to drop a hundred grand on your deflowering.” 

“That’s different.” 

“Different from what?” 

“Sex stuff,” Jay says, lowering his voice, which makes Mike laugh hard. 

“You can’t even say the word without acting like an embarrassed kid,” Mike says.

“What word?”

“Sex!” Mike says, so loud that everyone in the bar turns to stare. Mike belches in response to their curiosity, not giving a fuck, and notices that “Africa” by Toto is playing somewhere in the bar. Maybe there’s a jukebox in some dusty unseen corner. Both TVs are muted and nobody in the sparse crowd besides than him and Jay are really talking to each other. Jay looks thoughtful for a moment, then gulps down the remains of his third beer.

“Are we doin’ another round?” he asks, lifting the empty glass. 

“Of course,” Mike says, and he chugs the rest of his before signalling the bartender. He’s feeling okay, suddenly. Like everything’s gonna be just fine. The magic of booze!

“So,” Mike says when they’re both sipping from their fourth round. “Here’s what you oughta know about sex.”

“Oh boy,” Jay says, grinning. “Should I be taking notes?”

“Shuddup, Jay, and try to learn something. So, you may think this isn’t the case between a man and a woman but it’s true of every couple, okay, one person is gonna take the lead and the other person is gonna sorta follow. Now you may be thinking when it’s a guy and a girl the guy’s always in the lead but sometimes it’s the girl, doesn’t matter.” 

“Are you trying to tell me you’ve been pegged?” Jay asks, visibly trying not to laugh. 

“So what if I have? S’about more than that but whatever. Whoever buys you, okay, he’s gonna want to be one thing or the other. He might just want to act upon you, which-- Fine, okay. But he might want you to act upon _him_.” 

“Oh, jesus,” Jay says, nose wrinkling. “I figured I’d just have to lay there.” 

“Well. Is that what you’d like? You think? I mean, would that be your preference?” Finding out the answer to this question is the actual point of this whole discussion. Mike is wily even when drunk.

“I dunno, I haven’t tried it either way.” 

“Jay, this is intuitive. C’mon, like. What do you think about when you jerk off?”

“I’m not telling you that!”

“Pssh, you already did. Snake Plissken!”

“Ugh, god.” Jay slumps forward to put his elbows on the bar, hands covering his face. “I can’t believe that’s on the fucking internet.” 

“Ha, yeah, it’s great. Anyway, in your fantasies about Snake, is he nailing you or are you nailing him?”

“Why don’t you take a wild guess, Mike.”

“Ha! I knew it.”

“You don’t know shit,” Jay says, but he’s blushing when he sits up and gulps from his beer, because of course Mike is right: Jay wants to bottom to Snake Plissken and to Snake Plissken-like dudes. “And your sex advice sucks,” Jay says after he’s swallowed his beer. 

“What! No, it doesn’t. Umm, let’s see, what else can I tell you about the joys of sex. Wait, have you even sucked dick?”

“No, Mike.”

“Right, I guess you told me that already. Anyway, you’ll want to mind your teeth.” 

“No shit!” 

Jay is glowering, and Mike realizes he might have taken that as a personal insult about his teeth, even though they’re fine now. Mike didn’t intend it that way and doesn’t want Jay to be mad at him, not when they’re having such a good time with their beers and so forth. He decides he’d better say something nice. 

“Oh, who am I kidding,” Mike says, waving his hand over the bartop. “You’ll be great at sex, Jay. You’re a fast learner and, uhh, good with your hands. And your mouth. I mean, I assume you are.” 

Mike hears himself blathering nonsense and realizes how drunk he’s getting. Good! Anyway, Jay seems amused by him again. He’s smiling, lips pressed together.  

The content of their conversation gets blurry after that. All Mike knows is they’re enjoying each other’s company in the usual judgment-free way, talking shit and laughing, drinking more beer. Mike isn’t sure how many they’ve each had by the time they leave, and doesn’t quite remember getting back on the bus, but it’s warm and bright on board, even kind of cozy as the bus makes its way through the icy darkness outside, so he’s fine with this, just fine. It’s late now and they’re the only people riding, Jay in the window seat again and Mike beside him. At some point Jay got Mike going about his sexual history, and Mike doesn’t mind how much Jay is laughing at the tales of his various misadventures.

“You know what seriously is the most arousing thing a woman ever did to me?” Mike hears himself asking, and he’s glad, actually, that he brought this up, because it’s so almost-innocent that he can demonstrate. 

“What?” Jay asks, his shoulder bumping against Mike’s as the bus goes over a pothole.

“This girl I went to the movies with then I was a teenager,” Mike says, reaching for Jay’s hand. “She did this to me for like an hour in the theater.” 

Mike presses his thumb into the center of Jay’s palm, hoping he’s remembering how to do this right. His other fingers curl around the back of Jay’s hand and wrist, and he moves his thumb in tight, slow circles over the heel of Jay’s hand and then back into the center of his palm, concentrating in a way that the girl who’d done this to him hadn’t needed to. She’d never taken her eyes off the screen, which was itself pretty hot to him at the time. 

“Just-- Whatever this is,” Mike says, because he doesn’t know what to call it. It’s not quite a massage, more like obsessive rhythmic stroking over skin that he hadn’t even considered sensitive until that girl touched him like this. He’s never tried it on another person and has tried to recreate the feeling on himself, but it’s not the same. It’s about the person who’s doing it more than the sensation itself, someone working their hand over yours as if they know exactly what they’re doing, which is the way he hopes he’s doing it now. He increases the pressure a little and rubs his thumb up between Jay’s fingers, then back down again, feeling his way over the bones in Jay’s wrist before returning to his palm. Jay’s hands are small and cute, like the rest of him. 

Jay has gone quiet and perfectly still. His lips are parted just slightly as he watches Mike rub his hand, and his cheeks are pink, maybe just from all the beers. When Mike reaches for Jay’s other hand, Jay offers it without a word, his gaze still locked on what Mike is doing to him as if he’s mesmerized. There’s a slight tremble in his fingers as Mike works his thumb between them. Maybe he’s cold. Mike shifts closer, pressing his shoulder against Jay’s to warm him up.

“This gave me, like, the biggest boner at the time,” Mike says, trying to be funny, though it’s true.

“It’s-- you’re actually giving me a boner now,” Jay says, pulling his hand free. “So, um. Yeah.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Mike says, wanting Jay’s hand back. He wasn’t done, and: “What’s a boner between friends?”

Jay avoids Mike’s eyes and stands up unsteadily when the bus begins to roll to a stop near an intersection. They’re downtown somewhere, and Jay is climbing over Mike in a near flying leap, then bolting down the aisle. 

“This is my stop!” Jay shouts, either to the bus driver or to Mike, who feels like he just woke up underwater, his mind lagging behind and still stuck on how much he liked rubbing Jay’s hands, unable to catch up to whatever is happening now. 

“Wait!” Mike says, trying to follow Jay. He wrenches himself up from his seat, but he’s slow and clumsy after all that booze, also suddenly realizing how bad he needs to take a leak. “Jay, hang on!”

Jay is already off the bus, and the driver has closed the door behind him. The bus lurches forward and the driver ignores Mike as he stumbles down the aisle, too late. 

“Hey, wait!” Mike says, steadying himself on the back of a seat. He feels like he might puke. He hasn’t eaten anything in-- All day? “Wait, hang on, that’s-- That was my stop, too!”

“I’ll let you off at the next one,” the driver says, giving him an irritable glance. “Don’t you puke on my bus in the meantime.”

“M’not, I’m fine! Geez, lady.”

Mike falls into a seat and tries to make good on this promise not to puke. By the time the bus reaches the next stop he’s sure he’s going to spew everywhere, but the cold air outside helps steady him as he exits, and when the bus has pulled away he feels like the danger has passed. He squints around at the dark streets of downtown Milwaukee, vaguely seeking Jay and not even sure how many blocks they traveled since Jay ran off the bus like a lunatic. 

He digs out his phone and sends a text while making his way toward his neighborhood on foot, moving slowly. 

_What the fuck jus thapped where? Are you???_

It’s typo-ridden, but Jay will get the picture. Mike stands there waiting for a response for a moment, then curses and shoves his phone in his pocket, tucking his chin down against the frosty wind that’s blowing against him. Great, just when the night was going well. Fucking Jay, saying he doesn’t scare easily. Like hell he doesn’t!

Mike finally gets a response from Jay via text as he’s crossing his apartment building’s parking lot, exhausted and wrung out. He stops where he’s standing and pulls out the phone to read Jay’s message:

_Sorry i had to drank too much n see you tomrwe at work_

_Did you make it home?_ Mike sends back. He’s imagining Jay lost in an alley somewhere, overcome by a fog of confused lust, phone battery running low. 

_Yes i am fine mike BYE_

Mike can’t remember the last time he felt this-- What? Panicked? Rejected? No, he’s just drunk. He makes it up the stairs to his apartment and is in somewhat serious pain by the time he finally flings himself into the bathroom to take what feels like the longest and most critically overdue leak of his life. When he’s done he realizes it’s colder in the apartment than usual: much colder, and the bathroom light doesn’t come on when he flicks the switch up.  

Well, fuck. He’s behind on his power bill, but didn’t think he was shut-off-after-the-second-warning behind yet. Fortunately his apartment has windows, and there’s moonlight. He finds his way to the kitchen, where he stands at the counter and devours what remains of a bakery box of Pick N’ Save mini croissants. They’re stale, but he’s starving. 

When he’s finished he’s too tired to even keep chewing, let alone to hunt down something else to eat. He feels his way along the walls and into his bedroom, managing to at least get his shoes off before he collapses into bed. It’s cold enough that he leaves his coat on and tugs the blankets over himself, squirming down underneath them and still shivering. 

He rolls onto his stomach and closes his eyes. As soon as he does he sees Jay’s upturned palm again, offered to him with trembly surrender, and the mesmerized way Jay watched him rub one hand, then the other. As he sinks into sleep Mike allows himself to imagine Jay saying what he’d wanted to hear, which was something like, _yeah, feels good, that feels so good, Mike._


	3. Chapter 3

Jay doesn’t seem to remember the hand rubbing incident, or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk about it. He makes no mention of it at work the next morning and acts as if everything is normal, per their personal definition of normal that includes a virginity auction. He doesn’t even seem hungover. 

Mike can’t stop thinking about it, meanwhile. It’s not fair. He’s usually the one with the bad memory, especially where booze is involved.

“So what’d you do last night after you got home?” Mike asks when he can’t take it anymore. 

Jay shrugs and folds his arms over his chest, gripping his elbows. It’s a tell! But for what Mike isn’t sure. 

“Went to bed, I guess,” Jay says. “I was pretty wasted.” 

“Yeah, idiot, so why’d you go running off into the night alone like a maniac?”

Mike cringes when he hears how forceful and pissed off that sounded. Jay looks a little wounded. 

“I had to puke, if you must know,” Jay says. “And I knew you’d make fun of me for being a lightweight, so I left. What’s the big deal? I got home fine after.”

Mike narrows his eyes. A likely story. In his personal version of what unfolded after they parted ways, Jay went home to jerk off mournfully to the thought of Mike touching his hands. Mike may have jerked off to the memory of it this morning, so perhaps this qualifies as projection.

“Just be careful,” Mike says, gesturing to the computer monitor. “Now that you’re a local celebrity virgin, you shouldn’t go wandering around by yourself at night when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not a local celebrity,” Jay says, scoffing. “And don’t tell me what to do.”

That’s a new one, Mike almost says. Jay usually welcomes his direction in all matters.

For the next four days, Mr. Plinkett's bid on Jay’s virginity remains unchallenged. Jay does the agreed-upon interview about male sex workers, which is instantly published on some rinky-dink online magazine that Mike assumes nobody reads. On their own website, they release a new Jay video update daily, featuring him cutely stammering about whatever directions Mike tries to give him. Jay gets five hundred more Twitter followers and hundreds more retweets out of the deal. 

Mike loses three more followers, meanwhile. Generally the comments about the ‘disembodied male voice’ featured in the Jay videos are negative, but it doesn’t matter. Sweet, innocent virgin Jay needs a hard ass off-camera foil to make his submissive obedience seem alluring. It works well enough for publicity, with fawning comments about poor Jay the broke, hapless, adorable virgin pouring in on Twitter hourly, but Jay seems to be right that nobody is going to top Mr. Plinkett’s bid of fifty grand, no matter how many views and retweets their posts get.

Until day five, when everything gets real weird, real fast. 

Mike walks to work as usual, not having looked at Twitter before shoving his phone in his pocket on the way out the door. Twitter has begun to depress him, and he doesn’t want to start his day off with its digital screeching in mind. It’s a sunny morning, cloudless and very bright but not warm at all. The sunlight only makes the cold wind seem meaner. 

When he comes in view of the repair shop, he sees a guy standing outside. At first he’s afraid this means the door is still locked, meaning Jay didn’t show up for work, meaning oh dear god where the fuck is Jay, but just a few leaping steps later he sees that it is Jay, wearing a beanie over his hair and standing there zombie-like, staring out across the parking lot at nothing in particular. Seeing Jay in that beanie is almost as alarming as the idea of him showing up to work at all. Jay never wears a hat of any kind in the mornings, no matter the weather. It messes up his hair!

“What’s going on?” Mike asks, hurrying toward him. “Locked out?”

“Wha--” Jay turns to look at the repair shop’s front door as if he’d forgotten where he is. His face is white when he looks up at Mike. “No, uh. I’m not-- Door’s open. I just needed some air. My phone is inside. And the computer.” 

“Uhh, okay. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Mike. I don’t know, something happened.” 

“C’mon,” Mike says, taking him by the elbow. Jay looks like he’s just seen a ghost, and Mike is more than a little afraid to find out why. “It’s freezing out here, come inside.” 

Mike is tempted to lock the door behind them once they’re in the shop. He feels hunted already by whatever’s going on, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Jay is shaking, visibly frightened. Mike guides him into his chair and goes to pour him some coffee, then thinks better of it. He returns to Jay and takes his beanie off, leaving his hair mussed and static-filled but still looking pretty good, goddamn him.

“Mike,” Jay says weakly, like he’s bleeding internally or something.

“What?” Mike takes hold of Jay’s shoulders, standing in front of him and trying to hold him steady. Jay isn’t shaking that hard, but his eyes are darting around like he’s anticipating some kind of attack, his gaze meeting Mike’s and then bouncing away again. “Jay, calm down,” Mike says, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “I’m here now, everything’s fine. What happened?”

Jay lifts his arm, moving slowly. He points at the computer monitor on the countertop.

Mike turns toward it, still holding Jay’s shoulders and bracing himself for some blast of horror from the screen. The virginity auction website is pulled up, just as Mike feared.

He has to move away from Jay to see the current highest bid, inching close and squinting. It says five hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. He rubs his eyes and reads it again, then again, waiting for the numbers to transform into something that makes sense. He’s sure Jay has checked the validity of the bid already, since he’s this shaken by it, but he does it himself anyway, logging in as auction administrator. The bid is verified, and it’s not from Mr. Plinkett, who bid a hundred thousand dollars ten hours ago, after his fifty thousand bid was topped by one for seventy-five and then eighty. This top bid, which came after two others for two hundred and then two hundred and fifty thousand, is from an anonymous person.

“That’s a joke, right?” Jay says, eyes wide and unblinking when Mike turns to him. “You did that? As a joke? Is this all a joke, a big one you’ve been planning from the start? ‘Cause you should tell me now, if it is. Please, Mike. Please tell me that’s a joke.”

“Hey, no, but-- Hey! This is good!” Mike is trying and mostly failing to sound reassuring and not walloped with shock. “I mean. You know. Fuck. You can retire after this, yo.” 

“Don’t fucking call me yo right now! What kind of nightmare freak from hell would pay that much money to fuck me? Huh? And that’s not even the half of it!”

“Oh god,” Mike says, unable to keep the horrified look off his face now. “What’s the half of it?”

Jay looks angry now, which is an improvement over terrified. He gets up and shoulders Mike out of the way, leaning down to open a new tab in the browser. Mike expects him to go to Twitter and fret about how many new followers he has, but instead he does a Google search for his full name. 

News articles appear. 

Maybe it would be more accurate to call them cheap thinkpieces, but they are nevertheless hosted by major news outlets. Dozens of them have sprung up overnight like mushrooms. 

TWITTER IS BUZZING OVER WORKING CLASS MAN’S DESPERATE OFFER

WHO IS “JAY,” THE SELF-PROCLAIMED VIRGIN TWINK THAT TWITTER IS OBSESSED WITH?

FINANCIAL DESPERATION, SEX WORK, AND SOCIAL ISOLATION: DOES THIS MAN’S INTERNET STUNT ENCAPSULATE A GENERATION’S STRUGGLE?

“Make it stop, Mike,” Jay says when Mike gapes at him, feeling as if he’s been pitched into an episode of Star Trek, suddenly existing in another universe entirely. “Seriously, just. I didn’t sign up for this!”

“Okay, let’s just, let’s think,” Mike says. He takes Jay by the arm and guides him into the back room and away from the computer, as its very presence seems to be upsetting him. Mike feels close to going over the edge of disbelief and into a plummeting canyon of terror himself, but everything about this still feels too surreal to give him that final push, and obviously Jay needs his support or guidance or some goddamn thing. 

Mike sits next to Jay on the couch and pulls out his phone, surreptitiously continuing to investigate this phenomenon while Jay breathes in labored little huffs through his nose, lips pressed together in a straight line and eyes unfocused. 

“You’ve got a lot of new Twitter followers,” Mike says, as if Jay hasn’t noticed this along with everything else. “And, hmm, well, people are having a lot of different conversations around your auction, you know, it’s not all entirely about you.”

“Someone who claims to be from the Ellen show DM’d me about doing an appearance,” Jay says, voice tight and eyes glazed over. 

“Like, Ellen Degeneres?” 

“Yes, Mike. Like, her.” 

“Uhhhh. Okay? That’s weird. Hang on, just. May I act as your manager, Jay? It’s a lot to take in, but we don’t want to blow this, all right?” 

Jay closes his eyes and puts his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Mike rubs his back and tries to think. 

“Appearance on the Ellen Show, huh?” Mike says. “Interesting, okay, good. How much are they willing to pay you to appear, that’s your first question.”

“I hate this,” Jay says, voice muffled in his hands.

“I know, but you hated bussing tables and working at K-Mart, too. Making money is a dirty business--”

“Fuck you, Mike!” Jay says, straightening up to glower at him. “That’s easy for you to say! You don’t have to fuck some eccentric rich pervert!” 

“Shhh, I know, and neither do you, Jay, is what I’m saying.” 

“Huh?”

“Look, this whole circus is actually even better than giving up your ass for money. I mean, you can give up your figurative ass and keep your real one intact. Ellen Show? Sure, they can have you-- For at least five grand! What’s that to them? Chump change! And then what? Another stupid daytime show, a magazine article-- Before you know it, you’ll have that tax bill paid for and then some. We can collect enough in appearance fees to keep you from having to take the auction money and put out. It’s perfect, actually.” 

Jay looks confused but somewhat calmer, his panicked breathing slowing down a bit. Mike continues rubbing his back, his hand moving a little faster as his plans begin to formulate.  

“You think I could make fifteen grand from talk show appearances?” Jay asks. “And then just, what? Cancel the auction at the last minute?”

“Sure! Hell, we could even parlay the cancelation into more tell-all interviews. We just gotta act fast.”

“Fast?”

“Yeah, people’s interest in this kind of shit fades quick. Gimme your phone, I’ll DM the Ellen guy.” 

“I just-- I don’t get it,” Jay says, not moving to get his phone. He slumps over toward Mike, wrapping his arms around himself. “Why is this happening?”

“Eh, who knows. These things take on a life of their own, and it’s more about what other people are projecting onto you than anything. All’s you gotta worry about now is leaving it to me. We’re gonna milk this shit for every dime we can, and you, you know-- You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Except go on national TV and get interviewed about my lack of sexual experience!”

“Suuure, but wouldn’t you rather do that than, y’know, spread your legs for some wealthy weirdo?”

“I dunno,” Jay says, shrinking in on himself a little more. “At least that would be private. I don’t want to talk about-- Any of it! What are they gonna ask me?”

“Who-- Ellen?”

“Yes, fucking Ellen! Ugh, I can’t do this. I thought I’d be getting a couple thousand bucks for like twenty uncomfortable minutes at worst. This is too fucking much for me, Mike.” 

“Shhh, Jay, c’mere,” Mike says, rubbing Jay’s shoulder now, arm wrapped around him. “You don’t have to agree to anything right away. Let’s just talk to this Ellen show person and see what’s on offer, okay? Then we can make a decision about it. Together!”

Mike is beginning to see how this is ideal for him, too. Every day since they started this, his hatred for the idea of some rich asshole getting to have Jay has grown. Now Jay can get his stay out of jail money _and_ Mike can keep Jay all for himself. Theoretically, anyway. 

He’s half expecting Jay to have a tantrum about Mike trying to control the situation, but Jay seems too exhausted by the whole thing to protest. He gets up to fetch his phone and hands it over to Mike as if it’s a poisonous insect, then curls up on the other side of the couch with some hideously upsetting art film playing on his iPad while Mike does the dirty work of negotiation. An hour into the movie, Jay seems like himself again, smiling grimly at whatever disgusting thing he’s watching on the screen. This is his usual self-comforting routine. Mike is familiar with it, as various misadventures of theirs over the years have brought it on. Mike’s routine is more like what he’s doing now: making a plan, scheming actively, and eventually chugging a beer to celebrate his progress.

Mike gets up and paces around the shop while making arrangements with the Ellen guy on the phone, after having exchanged DM’s about the transaction. He’d expected the guy to be flamboyant or obnoxiously goofy, but he’s very dry and serious, a booking manager named Rodney who explains to Mike that Ellen’s show is currently on a ‘tour of Red States’ and will be coming through Wisconsin soon. Tomorrow, in fact. 

After Mike has settled Jay’s appearance details and fee with Rodney, he returns to the back room and finds Jay asleep, his iPad hugged against his chest and still playing some weird-ass movie. Mike kneels down in front of him, wondering if he should get him some coffee after all. When he tries to gently extract the iPad from Jay’s arms, Jay wakes up with a gasp, flinching.

“It’s okay,” Mike says. “It’s me.”

“I know,” Jay mutters, but he seems relieved and settles down onto the cushions like he plans to go back to sleep. 

“Why are you so tired?” Mike asks.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Jay says, eyes closed. “I saw this shit happening live. One stupid C-list celebrity tweeted about it and suddenly it was a fucking forest fire of mentions and replies and DMs, then those articles started appearing. I guess eventually I slept for a few hours. Woke up hoping it was a nightmare.”

“Well, it’s not all bad, Jay, listen here. If you’re willing to do the Ellen show tomorrow--”

Jay’s eyes shoot open.

“ _Tomorrow_??”

“Yes! I told you, interest in stories like this fades fast. They know that, and hey, they happen to be heading through Wisconsin tomorrow on some kind of investigative quest through moo cow flyover country. It’s fate! Also, at least you’ll be able to rip the Band-Aid off quickly. You won’t have to dread it for too long.”

Jay moans and holds his iPad over his face, as if the agonized screams from the character in the movie will protect him.

“Cheer up, buddy,” Mike says, tugging on his arm. “I got them to agree to an eight thousand dollar appearance fee. And you’ll have your own dressing room! With your name on the door and everything. Heyyy! Pretty cool, huh?”

“Sounds like my worst nightmare come true,” Jay says. He lowers the iPad just enough to glare at Mike from overtop it. Mike wishes he had his phone so he could take a picture for the website. This is cute, like, a really good look: squirming, petulant, half-resigned Jay. “Don’t they make you dance or something?” Jay asks, eyes narrowing again. “On that show?”

“I told them absolutely NO dancing, and they agreed.”

“They did? Really?”

“Yeah, uhhh, I may have said you were raised Amish and still consider it a sin--”

“Mike!”

“Relax! It’ll be fine. You’re pocketing that eight grand regardless, aren’t you? I’m looking out for you, man, don’t worry. And c’mon, don’t be such a wimp. You’ve done way more degrading stuff for money.” 

“I don’t have a problem with being degraded, Mike, you know this! It’s acting like, like-- However they’ll want me to act! Like a symbol of millennial struggles or repressed middle-aged manchildren or what the fuck ever.” 

“All you have to do is be yourself, Jay. People love you! Haven’t you even read the commentary? Everybody thinks you’re adorable, you’re a goddamn sensation.” 

“I don’t want to be! That’s stupid as fuck!”

“No, it’s not. The stars have aligned and we’re gonna make bank. Stop making this out to be some kind of tragedy. Your virginity is saved!”

“Who says I wanted it to be, and what the fuck do you mean by ‘we,’ Mike?”

“I’m your manager now, as discussed. We’ll negotiate my fee later. For now, we should focus on, uhh. Getting drunk?” 

“Sounds wonderful, but unlike you I have to go on national television tomorrow and try not to look like warmed-over shit.” 

“Jay, you could never look like warmed-over shit. You never did! Even when we first met and you kinda looked like you lived in a garbage can. Your true golden boy self was already shining through.” 

“No, it wasn’t,” Jay mutters, but his eyes soften like he’s been wanting to hear that. 

“Relax, okay?” Mike says, clapping his hand on Jay’s knee. Ever since that night on the bus he keeps wanting to touch Jay and keeps finding any excuse to do so. It might become a problem, but Jay hasn’t objected so far. “How about just one beer. That’ll help. Always does!”

Jay agrees to have one beer, which of course leads to two. Mike is feeling giddy about today’s developments by his third bottle, sitting too close to Jay at the front counter and torturing him by reading gushing praise from his many admirers aloud. 

“This one says they want to fight whoever’s buying you,” Mike says, scrolling through Twitter on his phone while Jay cracks open a third beer for himself. “Because they obviously don’t deserve you. Who could deserve such pure-hearted goodness!”

“Ugh,” Jay says, and he gulps from the beer. “I might be a virgin but I’m not pure hearted. Fuck that.” 

“Oh, they know all about your love of cinematic violence, Jay, the video where you talk about it is posted right there on the website. They think that makes you more darling and vulnerable, not less.”

“ _Why_? Fuck, don’t answer that, I don’t care-- And that’s not even what I meant.”

“What did you mean?” Mike asks, still scrolling but not really reading the screen now. 

“Nothing,” Jay mutters. 

“Not nothing. What’s so not-pure about you, Jay? Tell me.” 

Jay just glowers when Mike looks over at him. 

“It’s your choice,” Mike says. “Tell me now, or risk Ellen getting it out of you tomorrow!”

Jay’s face goes sheet white, and Mike actually feels bad. He puts the phone down and reaches over to give Jay a reassuring pat on the back, but this time Jay leans away. 

“How’d I ever let you talk me into any of this?” Jay asks. 

“How do I talk you into anything?” Mike says with a shrug. He doesn’t even know what the answer is. Why does Jay do everything he asks? Why has this always been true? How far could Mike take it, if he were so inclined?

“Are they gonna give me a list of questions to answer ahead of time?” Jay asks, fidgeting.

“Who?”

“The Ellen people!”

“Oh, uh, no, I don’t think so. It’s supposed to be candid.” 

“Great.”

“It _will_ be great, Jay, you’ll see. Just be your loveable self and collect your money.”

Somehow it gets to be evening. Mike has had a few more. Jay, too, and he’s laughing again, though also keeping his distance in a pointed way, evading Mike’s attempts to touch him in fake-incidental gestures that are perhaps really obvious at this point. He does let Mike buy him dinner at the Burger King across the street after they’ve closed up the shop. Only when they’re walking home and Mike wants to stop for a six pack does he realize the ten dollars and seventy cents he spent at Burger King was pretty much all the money he had left.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Mike says when they’re standing outside Jay’s apartment building, in the parking lot under yellow streetlight and a wet, shimmery snowfall that started when they left the Burger King.

“You don’t have a car,” Jay says. 

“Oh. Right. Okay, so, I’ll arrange for Ellen to send a car. It’s the least they can do.” 

“I feel like I’m gonna die,” Jay says, scrubbing his hand over his face.

“Well,” Mike says, alarmed. Maybe he should walk Jay all the way to his door? “You aren’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Ellen is not normally in the business of murdering her guests on camera, as far as I can tell. I mean, I’ve never actually watched the show, admittedly. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the formula.” 

Jay starts to smile but seems to lose the energy for it halfway through. He wavers on his feet as if he’s going to take a step in Mike’s direction, then just stands there. His eye are still swimmy from the beers, and there’s sparkly snow caught in his mustache. 

“I could stay with you tonight,” Mike blurts, just drunk enough to suggest this. “If, you know. If you want company. I mean, in case you have nightmares. Or whatever.” 

Jay makes a face that strikes Mike like a slap, leaving a sting. 

“No,” Jay says, backing away. “I’m fine, just. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 _Fine_ , Mike almost shouts. _That’s fine, fuck if I wanted to do you a favor anyway!_ He’s at least sober enough to keep his mouth shut as he turns and walks away.


	4. Chapter 4

Mike is the one who has nightmares: that Ellen does murder Jay on camera, laughing maniacally and hacking at him with a machete while her evil backstage crew holds Mike back from rescuing him. That’s the worst one, and there are other more mundane ones about Jay being embarrassed on the show, people laughing at him, and Jay hating Mike forever as a result. His sleep is terrible between these dreams, and he wakes up in a shitty mood, hungry and in need of coffee. The only food left in his apartment is an old box of stale S’Mores Pop Tarts, and he doesn’t have enough money for even the cheapest cup of crappy coffee, but the Ellen-sent limo is pulling up, and there’s bound to be food at the recording venue. 

After all those dreams, it’s a relief to climb into the back of the limo and find Jay sitting there, safe and in one piece, if also looking like he’s going to puke. He lets Mike crowd into the seat next to him and even scoots toward him, twitchy hands fidgeting over his knees. 

“Nice sweater,” Mike says, because Jay is wearing his best green argyle one.

“I wasn’t sure how to dress,” Jay says, giving Mike a stricken look. “You think this is okay?”

“It’s great. I was being serious, you look very nice.” 

Jay stares at Mike like he’s waiting for a punchline. He’s making no attempt to conceal his utter terror about what’s about to happen, and why would he? It’s just the two of them back here. Mike gives Jay a nudge with his shoulder, hoping it will communicate something reassuring. His mouth feels dry as the limo pulls out onto the highway. He keeps wanting to ask Jay if this is really happening, and keeps catching himself thinking they’re on their way to the site of Jay’s deflowering, not just a TV interview. 

There’s a huge line of people waiting outside the Miller High Life Theater, hoping to get into the Ellen taping. Most of them are mom-looking women. Jay peers out the window at them with grim curiosity, gripping his knees so tightly that his knuckles are white, then leans over toward Mike. He paws at Mike’s shoulder and brings his shaking lips to Mike’s ear so the driver won’t hear him whisper:

“Mike. I can’t do this.” 

“I know,” Mike says, starting to share Jay’s irrational fear that he’s about to be executed publicly. “But, listen. You have to.” 

Mike has been anticipating this moment: Jay needs Mike to give him an order. It’s not optional as long as Mike asks it of him. 

Jay pulls back to give Mike a wounded, searching look. Mike shrugs and forces a cold expression onto his face.

“Just get it over with,” Mike says. “Then I’ll take you out for a beer. Or twelve.”

It’s not the time to mention that Jay will actually have to pick up the tab, because Mike is officially penniless as of yesterday.

The driver enters a protected garage for talent arrival, and inside there is a group of three snazzily-dressed people waiting for them, all smiling, two of them wearing headsets with little microphones that hover in front of their mouths. Mike nudges Jay toward the door when the limo parks, and again, until he makes his way out of the car, sighing.

Jay mostly just nods silently as Ellen’s staffers give friendly but firm instructions about exactly how this will go. They ignore Mike after the introductions, but they don’t seem alarmed when he trails Jay into a green room that is blessedly full of buffet snacks. 

“We’ll be back in an hour or so, after sound check,” the black-haired PA says before leaving them there. Mike didn’t pay attention to her name during the introductions, or any of the names. He’s glad when they’re all gone and he’s alone in green room with Jay and the food.

“Ooh, crab dip,” Mike says, heaping a big glob of it onto a little white catering plate. “Want some?”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Jay asks, taking a seat on the couch on the other side of the room. “I can’t eat right now. Or maybe ever again. What if I throw up in front of the live audience?”

“People will just feel sorry for you and love you more.”

Jay goes silent, slumped forward and holding onto the couch cushion he’s sitting on with both hands. Mike can feel the miasma of his profound dread from across the room. He leaves Jay alone and concentrates on eating, also stuffing the front pocket of his sweatshirt with as much food as he can reasonably conceal there, thinking ahead. Jay might temporarily hate him after this and refuse to even share enough of the eight grand to buy Mike a sandwich.

When a staffer comes to fetch Jay for his appearance, Mike elects to stay in the green room, where the food is, rather than going out to watch from the audience. There’s a TV where he can view the show on a slight tape delay. 

“Break a leg!” he calls to Jay, who turns to give Mike a look that makes him feel like he’s just abandoned Jay in a cardboard box on the side of the road. Mike jerks toward him instinctively, but it’s too late to do anything: he’s gone, the door shut behind him. 

Mike paces around, glancing up at the TV, which has gone to commercials. He does sincerely believe this will go well: Jay is so accidentally charming, he’ll kill it. Then they can book a few more appearances, maybe co-author a tell-all book, and collect all kinds of dough that won’t require Jay to fuck some anonymous weirdo. Everything will be fine, and maybe once the dust has settled Mike can charitably offer to demonstrate the many joys of sex upon Jay.

When the show comes back from commercial, Mike’s stomach drops. He instantly regrets the ridiculous amount of food he just stuffed in his face. 

“If you’re just joining us, you may notice the studio looks different,” Ellen says. “That’s because today we are visiting our friends in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin!” 

This is the cue for the crowd to go wild. Mike hears the distant roar of it in reality first, then from the TV. His stomach lurches again.

“Oh no,” he says, putting his hand on his gut. There’s a bathroom attached to the green room, but he’d really rather not be in there during Jay’s appearance.

“This is of course part of our tour of ‘red states’,” Ellen says, raising her hands to make scare quotes around those last two words. “Where we’ve been meeting some hard-working, everyday people who have fascinating stories to tell. Today, we have one of those people here with us as our special guest. Milwaukee, let’s hear a warm midwestern welcome for the internet sensation, a local lad--  Jay the Virgin!”

The crowd goes wild: again, first in reality, then on the TV. Without even realizing it, Mike has begun to moan in a low, regular whine of agony under his breath. His stomach is twisting up, kicking at him from within and preparing to reject all the various rich dips he just shoveled into it.

Jay walks out on stage looking small and confused, like an untrained animal released into a circus ring. Someone has fucked up the perfect wave of his hair. His fringe is smooshed down too much on the right side. Goddammit! Mike should have gone with him, as his manager, to make sure that didn’t happen. The hair is like seventy percent of Jay’s brand!

Ellen insists on giving Jay a hug, which makes Mike cringe. Jay hates hugging random people. 

“Thanks so much for joining us!” Ellen says when she’s seated across from Jay, whose posture is suddenly freakishly straight. 

“You’re welcome,” Jay says, which makes the crowd titter with approving laughter.

“I have to say, when I first heard about your auction, I thought the whole thing was vulgar and sad.” 

Ellen pauses to give Jay an earnest look after saying this. Jay visibly swallows.

“Sure,” he says, voice a little pinched.

“Then I watched your videos, and I started to understand what all the fuss was about. I think at the center of it is a strange sort of fascination about just who you are and how you came to be in this situation. So I wanted to give you a chance to maybe open up a little more, without that guy in the background barking directions at you-- Who is that guy, anyway?”

Ellen delivers this question in such a way that the audience laughs. 

“He’s my manager,” Jay says. “Also my co-worker. Uhh, and my best friend.” 

“Wow, sounds like he plays a lot of roles in your life.”

“I guess so.”

“So can we talk about the fact that you are gay and that you came out in your thirties?”

“Yeah,” Jay says, voice shrinking. 

“I can relate! It really does sort of set things back, relationship-wise.”   

“Mhm-hmm.”

“Is a relationship something you think you would want?”

“Um, sure.” 

“ _Are_ you sure? Some people are asexual, and that’s okay.” 

“I know. I mean. I’m not-- That. It’s just complicated, uh. My situation.” 

Jay turns beet red. The audience titters. Mike’s stomach twists sharply and he winces up at the TV, almost doubled over from gut pain at this point.

“Of course,” Ellen says. “There’s also the financial element. How did you come to the decision to sell yourself this way?”

“Oh, I’m not selling my, uh, self. I mean, not the whole thing. Just this one part of it. It’s fine. I need the money. I, um. Forgot to do my taxes. For five years.”

The audience laughs warmly, as if this is adorable. 

“That’s interesting that you make that distinction between the self and your virginity,” Ellen says. “Because that’s a very personal, intimate thing, for most people.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you really think it’s worth it?”

“For five hundred thousand dollars?” Jay says, eyebrows going up. “[Bleep] yeah.” 

The audience reacts with a mixture of gasps and laughter. 

“Sorry,” Jay says. 

“I forgive you,” Ellen says. “Why do you think the price has gone up so much? Did you expect that?”

“No! I didn’t even think I’d get five thousand. And I don’t know why it’s gone this far. It’s really weird, to me.”

“I understand the highest bids have been anonymous so far. What kind of person out there do you think is willing to pay that much for this experience with you?”

“Oh god. I don’t know. Hopefully someone who isn’t, like. Evil.” 

Mike has to run for the bathroom then. He doesn’t actually puke, just leans over the toilet bowl feeling like he’s going to for ten minutes, fighting waves of nausea and trying to listen to the interview as it continues on the TV outside. By the time his stomach feels somewhat normal again, he’s hearing applause that means the show is going to commercial. Half a minute later, the green room’s door opens. 

“Mike?” Jay calls. 

“I’m in the bathroom!” Mike shouts. 

“Are you okay?”

“Sort of. Are you?”

“Yeah. Hey, come on out, Ellen wants to meet you.” 

Mike groans and sticks his head out through the cracked open bathroom door, still on his knees. Jay grins at him. 

“Just kidding, she doesn’t give a fuck. I don’t think that went too bad, do you?”

“You were great,” Mike says, still sweaty and feeling like shit. 

“Yeah? You think so?” 

“Yes, Jay, congratulations.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay? Did you throw up?”

“No, I just ate too much, too fast. Speaking of which, hey. Do me a favor and load your pockets up with food before we leave.” 

“Mike, you don’t have to hoard Ellen food to sustain yourself. I’ll give you a loan, they already cut me the check for eight grand.” 

“Well,” Mike says, crawling slowly to his feet, hands sliding upward along the bathroom’s door frame. “That’s good news.” 

“Jesus, I’m just glad it’s over. Can we get the hell out of here now, please?”

By the time the limo drops them off at the VCR repair shop, Jay’s auction has five new bids, the highest one for eight hundred thousand dollars. Mike ignores this information as best he can as he edits the website to include his contact information for appearance bookings. 

“Guess we don’t have to do a new video today,” Jay says, already enjoying a celebratory beer. “Seeing as we can just link to the Ellen one.” 

“Yeah, you’re off the hook.” Mike still feels vaguely ill. He doesn’t even feel like drinking a beer, which is alarmingly unprecedented.

“I gotta hand it to you, Mike, you were right.” Jay puts down his beer and consults his phone. “I have like twenty thousand more followers already, and that interview wasn’t too painful. I wonder if the auction will get up to a million dollars? Jesus, that would be crazy.” 

“Crazy,” Mike agrees, wanting to remind Jay of their plan to make all the money he needs off appearance fees alone and tell the winner of the auction to fuck off in the end. He doesn’t say anything, too afraid Jay might have changed his mind. Even during that Ellen interview he was shrugging at the idea of sleeping with the winner, and his indifference seemed sincere. 

But that was just for the cameras, Mike tells himself, giving Jay a nervous glance. Jay smiles back at him, revealing nothing. Suddenly Mike feels like he can relate to all those fuckers packed into the Miller High Life Theater, staring at Jay from a distance and wondering just what the hell his deal is, exactly. What’s going on behind those colorless yet sparkling eyes? 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jay asks, smile fading.

“I’m not! Like what? Nothing, it’s fine.” 

“Um, okay. You really don’t want a beer?” 

“Maybe later.”

“Geez, fine, guess I’ll celebrate alone then.”

Jay’s good mood continues to unnerve Mike as their work day goes on, to the point that he’s actually glad when a customer walks in. She’s younger than their usual clientele, maybe still a teenager, skinny and sort of bug-eyed. She does not seem to be in possession of a VCR, and doesn’t approach the counter once she’s inside, just stands near the door staring: at Jay, pointedly.  

“Welcome to our shop,” Mike says when Jay just sits there drinking his beer as if this is none of his business. “How can we help you today, ma’am.”

“It’s true,” the girl says in a hushed voice, speaking to herself. “It really is him.” 

“Huh?” Mike glances at Jay, who at least looks mildly concerned now. “Him? Oh, you must recognize him from TV. Yes, this is the famous Jay the Virgin. If you’re here to place a bid, I hope you’ve got eight hundred and fifty or so thousand bucks to put down.” 

The girl backs slowly toward the door, still staring at Jay, then seems to spook suddenly and turns, flinging herself out of the shop and running away. 

“That’s cute,” Mike says, shrugging when Jay gives him a worried look. “You have a fan.” 

“Ugh,” Jay says. “I can’t wait for all this to be over.”

Mike isn’t sure how to interpret that. Does Jay mean that it will be over after he’s caused another media garbage storm by rejecting the winning bid and not going through with the virginity-giving up? Or something else?

“You’re giving me that weird look again,” Jay says. 

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. What, Mike? You seem creeped out or something.” 

Before Mike can answer, the door opens again. The bug-eyed girl is back, now with two friends who are similar in age and in their gawky fascination with Jay, all of them staring at him. 

“Jay!” the tallest girl says, as if she knows him. She rushes toward the counter at such a speed that Jay flinches backward in his chair. Mike stands up, ready to be a bodyguard if necessary. 

“Watch it, sister,” Mike says, throwing his hand out in a halting gesture. “Do not approach the talent.”

She shrinks back and for a moment looks like she’ll cry. Her friends are whispering together excitedly near the door. 

“I just wanted to say,” the tall girl says, clasping her hands over her chest, “Jay, you don’t have to go through with it! The IRS can’t make you give up your innocence for money! That’s so evil!”

“Uhh,” Jay says. “Okay. Thanks for the tip.”

“I’m serious!” The girl looks up at Mike, and her watery expression changes to one of righteous fury. “You,” she says. “Are awful!”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mike says, waving his hand toward the door. “You kids-- Get outta here! It’s none of your business what he does with his body for money.” 

“It’s not yours, either!” one of the girls near the door shouts. “Jerk!”

“Don’t yell at him,” Jay says. “It’s not his fault.”

“Oh, Jay!” the tall girl says, swooning toward the counter. “Of course you don’t think so! You’re too pure for this world.” 

“What are you talking about? You don’t know me.”

The girls all break into nervous laughter, as if this is an adorable joke Jay has told.

“Your interview this morning was sooo good,” one of the girls by the door says. “We could tell you were way happier not being interviewed by _him_ for a change.”

They all glare at Mike, and then scream when Mike pounds the counter with his fist.

“This is private property!” he shouts. “And I told you little shits to get out!”

They scream again and flee, the tall one casting a tearful look back at Jay before following her friends out.

“Well, great,” Jay says, slamming his beer bottle down on the counter. “Now I’m fucked. All kinds of crazies are gonna start wandering in here. How’d they figure out where I work?”

“I don’t know,” Mike says. His heart is pounding. How fucking dare they! “But I think it’s as good a reason as any to close early.”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Are you ready for a drink now?”

Mike is more than ready, his earlier nauseous feeling replaced with a dizzying rage. People think they can just walk up to Jay and tell him what to do? Fucking assholes! That’s Mike’s job.

They go to their usual bar and order fancy craft beers, since Jay is flush with cash now. Right off the bat, Mike has an itchy feeling like they’re being scrutinized by the patrons who usually ignore them, and the hair on the back of his neck stands up as he surveys the crowd, catching a curious look here and there. Someone lifts their phone and takes a not-subtle picture of Jay from the other end of the bar. 

Jay doesn’t seem to notice, but this doesn’t last long, because someone comes up and taps him on the shoulder before he’s even halfway through his first beer. It’s a douchey-looking guy in a suit, about Jay’s height and a little younger than him and Mike.

“Hey, are you Jay the, uh.” He glances at Mike and then back at Jay. “The Jay who was on Ellen this morning?”

“Yes,” Jay says, groaning the word out. “Why?”

“Oh, I’m an accountant, and I was just wondering if maybe you need one.” 

“He’s got an accountant,” Mike says, waving the guy off. “Get lost.”

“I don’t, though?” Jay says under his breath, turning toward Mike with a look like he’s not entirely sure this is true.

“Yes, you do!” Mike says, whispering. “Me!”

“Oh, god.”

“Can I get a picture?” a woman who has suddenly appeared asks, startling both of them. She lifts her phone and leans toward Jay, snapping the picture while he sits there with his mouth hanging open. “Wait, one more,” she says, adjusting the angle and tossing her hair back. “This is hilarious. I knew I’d seen you in here before.” She lowers her phone and beams at Jay, then at Mike. “I always thought you two were a couple!”

“Maybe they are and it’s all a big scam,” a rough-looking old man says, snarling at them from a nearby table. “Sure smells like a scam to me.” 

“What do you know, you old codger?” Mike shouts, and then everyone in the bar is staring at them, many of them whispering and several more creeping forward with phones lifted, taking pictures. 

“Can we get the hell out of here?” Jay asks in a lowered voice, smacking a twenty on the bartop. “Please? This is freaky as shit.” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” Mike chugs the remainder of his beer and stands to shout at everybody in the bar: “Screw all you guys, have some goddamn manners! You’re supposed to be, like, friendly midwesterners! Where’s the courtesy!”

Outside, the sunlight has begun to dim a bit. The whole day has felt like a surreal blur to Mike, and he’s on edge now more than ever, keeping close to Jay as they walk down the street, both of them looking over their shoulders to check for any creeps who might be following them. 

“Where can we go where people won’t know you from the goddamn Ellen show?” Mike asks. 

“I don’t know,” Jay says, shaking his head. “Actually, I think I’m just gonna head home. I didn’t get a lick of sleep last night. I just tossed and turned, thinking about what was gonna happen on that dumb show. Now that the adrenaline's burned off it’s really hitting me, I’m fucking tired. Can you, uh. Would you mind walking me to my place, at least most of the way?”

“Jesus, of course. I’ll walk you all the way to your door. I’ll sit outside all night with a shotgun, if you want.”

“I don’t think it’s that serious,” Jay says, yawning. “But thanks, Mike. You’re a good friend.” 

Mike is bothered by this statement as they make their way toward Jay’s apartment building. He thinks of what those stupid girls who came into the shop said. But what the hell do they know? He _is_ a good friend to Jay. He might have gotten Jay into this mess, but the goal was to make him some money, and in that sense Mike’s plan has been a huge success. He’s not sure why he feels so fucking guilty and devastated, therefore. 

Jay is yawning constantly and almost asleep on his feet by the time they get to his door. Mike wants to follow him inside and check all the closets for weirdos, but Jay insists he’s fine, that he just wants to sleep. Once he’s inside, Mike stands in the hallway and listens for the lock, then the deadbolt. He sighs and heads off toward his own place, also tired. Sleep last night wasn’t great for him either.

The sun has set by the time Mike makes it home on foot, dragging his steps and wishing he’d remembered to borrow some cash from Jay so he could buy something for dinner. He at least has the ham and cheese pastries that he stuffed into the front of his sweatshirt back in the green room, and he eats them while standing over the sink in the kitchen, wishing he’d snatched a dozen more. When they’re gone he takes a shower in the dark, glad that he at least still has hot water. Getting out of the shower is complete misery, however. After three days without power, his apartment has grown downright frigid. He towels himself off as quickly as possible, cursing as the air seems to sting him all over. He puts on sweatpants, socks, and three layers of shirts before diving into bed and squirming down under the pile of ice cold blankets while his teeth chatter.

As soon as the blankets are warmed up by his body heat, he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep. It’s pitch black in his bedroom when he wakes up with a jerk, the moon disappeared behind some clouds. He rolls over to go back to sleep, but before he can put his head back on his pillow he realizes what woke him up: someone is pounding on his apartment’s front door. 

Mike freezes and listens, alarmed by the urgency of the pounding. He gropes for his phone, but of course it’s dead; the charge he gets from the VCR repair shop’s power only lasts him until about midnight, so it must be later than that. Whoever’s out there is still pounding, insistent. Mike grumbles to himself as he leaves the meager heat of his bed, pulling one of the blankets around his shoulders and stumbling his way toward the door. 

He consults the peep hole on the door and curses when he sees that it’s Jay out there, pounding weakly now with the flat of his hand. Mike fumbles to open the door, sorry that he took so long. Jay looks frightened. Mike pulls him inside and sticks his neck out to check both ends of the hallway. There’s no one in sight, but Jay is breathless and has the energy of someone who’s been chased.

“People,” Jay says when Mike has bolted the door and turned to him, feeling through the darkness as his eyes adjust. “People were, like. Climbing my fire escape.”

“Jesus Christ!” Mike holds Jay by his shoulders and fights the urge to yank him closer. “Did you call the cops?”

“I wasn’t gonna wait around for them to get there! I just ran, and I think I lost them, whoever they were. Mike, can I-- Wait, why is it freezing in here? And dark?”

“Power bill’s late, so they shut that shit off.” 

“Oh. That sucks. But can I stay here tonight? Please? I don’t know what else to do.” 

“Of course you can stay here, Jay, jesus! What am I going to do, throw you out into the snow? Is that the kind of guy everybody thinks I am, apparently?”

“Huh? No? I figured it would be fine, just felt like I should ask first. Are you okay?”

“Me? Of course I’m okay, you’re the one who’s getting chased by insane stalkers. It’s just cold in here is all. Shit!” 

Mike lets go of Jay’s shoulders and pulls the blanket that he’s wearing like a cape around himself more tightly, the chill in the room reaching him now that his racing sense of panic has decreased. Jay made it here, he’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“I think the auction might have gone up to a million dollars,” Jay says, mumbling this like he’s embarrassed by it. 

“Told you so.”

“Yeah. The fact that you told me so is even more insane than the fact that it happened.”

Mike just grunts, afraid to respond to that.

“Fuck, it is freezing in here,” Jay says, hugging his arms around himself. “How long has the power been shut off?”

“I dunno, a few days.”

“Mike, you dummy. I had no idea. You could have stayed with me.”

“Uhhh, I’m pretty sure the last time I asked to stay over you gave me a look like I was threatening to skull fuck you.”

“What? No, I didn’t. When did you ask--”

“Never mind! Forget it. Now you’re here, safe and sound, in my icebox from hell. Welcome. Make yourself at home.”

“You can’t not have heat in winter in Milwaukee,” Jay says, as if he’s going to write to the fucking governor or something. “It’s inhumane.”

“It’s spring, Jay.”

“Same thing.” 

“I get by.” Mike wonders if he should offer Jay a blanket or just tell him to go get in his bed, which is the only place in the apartment that holds anything resembling warmth. “I have my blubber to keep me warm,” he says, stalling. “Your failure to pack on weight in preparation for the nine months of cold is the issue here.”

“Weight doesn't look good on me,” Jay says. “I'm not six feet tall." 

Mike is almost flattered. Is Jay saying this weight looks good on him? Hmm. Maybe they should just get in the fucking bed together and get on with it. It would actually be pretty hilarious if Mike claimed the prize of Jay’s virginity through sheer charm and animal charisma, thereby robbing Jay of a million bucks and some rich asshole of the chance to buy something that is too valuable to put a price on, now that he thinks about it.

“There’s really nowhere you can be except the bed,” Mike says, pointing toward his bedroom. “Without being cold, I mean.”

Jay glances in that direction and then back at Mike. He shrugs. 

“That’s fine,” he says. “I’m already in my pajamas.” 

Mike can see that, now that his eyes have adjusted. Jay is wearing baggy flannel pants and a thermal shirt under his coat. One of his boots is untied.

“You must have been really scared,” Mike says, hoping this won’t sound mean. Sometimes his tone just goes there out of habit, and he can’t always tell. 

“I thought it was a nightmare at first,” Jay says. “But that shit feels different when it’s real. Like. Fuck, I felt like-- I don’t know.” Jay shivers, his shoulders lifting. “I don’t want to think about it. Let’s, um-- If you really don’t mind me sharing your bed?” 

“It’s fine,” Mike says, as if the idea of sharing body heat with scared, shivery Jay hasn’t recently become the best shit of his wildest dreams, sexual and otherwise. “C’mon.” 

Mike leads the way through the dark, reaching back for Jay as he walks toward the bedroom. When Jay grasps his hand and holds it, Mike is glad it’s too dark for Jay to see his goofy-ass expression, which is whatever expression one puts on when they suddenly feel like they are in a fairy tale, rescuing a tiny prince from evildoers.

“Did you get a good look at the people on the fire escape?” Mike asks. They should, like, file a police report. Or something.

“No,” Jay says. “But there were at least two of them. Mike, please, can we not talk about it right now? I just really need to get some fucking sleep or I’m gonna go out of my mind.”

“Sorry, yeah, sorry.” 

Mike gets into the bed first, still partially wrapped in the blanket that’s around his shoulders. The heat he left behind when he got up to answer the door has faded a little, but not too much. 

“C’mon,” he says, holding the blankets up while Jay takes his shoes off. “Don’t dawdle, the cold’s gettin’ in.”

“I’m not!” 

Jay kicks his boots away and shrugs off his coat, dropping it onto the floor. Mike considers mentioning that he could leave the coat on, but who is he to protest Jay’s apparent desire to have even fewer layers between them? He’s grateful all over again for the darkness as Jay feels his way onto the bed and moves closer, until he’s scooting under Mike’s arm as Mike tucks the blankets around his back. 

“Get in here,” Mike mutters. He wraps both arms around Jay under the blankets, because they’ve come this far and there’s no reason to pretend he doesn’t want to. “Bask in the warmth, little orphan Annie.” 

Jay makes a _hmph_ -ing noise at the back of his throat, as if he objects to this description of himself, but he also squirms even closer than Mike expected him to, gluing himself to Mike and pressing his cheek to Mike’s chest. He wraps his arm around Mike and clings shamelessly, arching his back and flexing his legs against Mike’s like he’s reveling in the feeling of being this close to him. Maybe he’s never been in bed with anyone like this before, because who even does this if they haven’t fucked first? 

“I think you might be touch starved,” Mike says.

“I think you might be projecting,” Jay says, his voice muffled against Mike’s shirt.

Mike scoffs, then tries to remember the last time he did anything like this himself. It’s been a while since he’s even gotten laid, and it’s true that he’s holding on to Jay just as tightly, and fighting the urge to bury his face against the top of Jay’s head. 

“What am I gonna do?” Jay asks after they’ve both been quiet for a while, the blankets warming up with their combined body heat. 

“About what,” Mike asks. 

Jay doesn’t answer, just sighs and tightens his arm across Mike’s back. Mike doesn’t ask again, because he knows what Jay means, and he’s been wondering, too, just what Jay is going to do in the end. 

Mike can feel it when Jay starts to fall asleep: his death grip on Mike relaxes a little, and his breath evens out. He twitches half-awake a few times before nodding off again, nudging his face into Mike’s chest as he gets comfortable. Mike just lies there hoping his heartbeat won’t keep Jay awake. It’s going way too fast, giving something away, like how much it means to him to feel Jay sink into sleep in his arms. Jay can sleep at last because knows he’s safe here. He knows Mike will protect him. 

Pretty soon Jay is totally out, limp against Mike’s chest and breathing with his mouth just slightly open. Mike runs his hand over Jay’s hair to smooth it down and keep it from tickling his nose, then a few more times for good measure. Jay’s hair is softer than it looks. He must comb the product out of it before going to bed. 

Mike doesn’t mind that he can’t sleep. He rubs his thumb down along the length of his Jay’s spine, then up again, imagining this might chase some bad dream away. Mike has always needed to the biggest and smartest guy in every room, the person everyone looks to as the leader and defers to without question. This attitude has cost him many friends over the years, but not Jay. They may be equally smart, or equally not smart, if you look at it another way, but Mike has always enjoyed being the more imposing of the two of them, and Jay has always shrugged it off. Maybe he even likes it. Just let those wackos from the fire escape or the internet or wherever try to get near Jay while Mike is around. He’ll show ‘em. Even if he did sic them on Jay in the first place.

He attempts to stay up all night, to keep an eye on things, but there’s nothing going on and eventually he can’t hold out any longer. His dreams are hazy and overheated, all of them involving rolling on top of Jay and having him in one way or another, sometimes while being cheered on by onlookers. These dreams segue into something closer to nightmares, with both Mike and Jay realizing with creeping horror that the room is full of strangers who are recording their first time together with camera phones, but Mike still has a huge boner when he wakes up, which is unfortunate, because Jay is pressed tight against him and there’s no way he hasn’t noticed. 

Jay doesn’t seem disturbed, though he’s also not entirely awake, yawning and stretching and seeming to only slowly remember where he is. The sun has come up and the room is filled with dull morning light. Jay’s eyes are puffy from sleep, and when he peeks up at Mike his face gets red, maybe because he also has morning wood and has realized there’s no way Mike hasn’t noticed it. 

They blink sleepily at each other, maintaining eye contact long enough that Mike is certain he should just kiss Jay, and why isn’t he already doing it, except that his breath is probably bad and then what? Their respective boners are already just inches away from each other. It feels like a lot to deal with, however, first thing in the morning, and Mike is comfortable like this, warm and cozy. He keeps waiting for something to happen without his brain needing to really sort it out, until Jay moans and sits up, pulling away from him. 

“Have to pee,” Jay says, already getting out of the bed. 

“Bathroom’s right there,” Mike says, like an idiot.

Jay snorts. “I can see that. And I’ve used your bathroom like a million times.”

Mike tries to come up with a witty response, but despite his awkward boner-having gait, Jay is already in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He turns the faucet on full blast, and Mike is awake enough now to know what Jay is up to in there: jerking off!

This is amusing, then kind of annoying, because they could have just done this together. But whatever, whatever: Mike stuffs his hand under the blankets and into his pants, determined to get rid of his boner before he gets up to face whatever fresh hell this day has in store. He smashes his eyes shut and goes right to thoughts of Jay, no time to work up to them from vaguer shit. He tries to return to the world of his better dreams from the night before, the ones about Jay opening his mouth for Mike’s tongue, wrapping his short little legs around Mike’s back as tightly as he could manage, and moaning Mike’s name until it was barely a word anymore. 

He’s close but he can’t finish, too aware that the real Jay is nearby and jerking off to fuck knows what while he runs up Mike’s water bill in there, the sink still on full blast. Mike considers switching to a really filthy fantasy, the kind of stuff he’s hesitated to indulge in because there’s no going back if he lets himself think about it, like, say, Jay bending over and grabbing his ankles. 

Just as this image has fully formed in Mike’s mind, the water shuts off abruptly and Jay walks out into the room. 

“Oh,” Jay says, turning sharply away from the bed, because Mike was in mid-pump and there’s no mistaking what he’s doing under the blankets. “I’m gonna make coffee!” Jay says, already racing out Mike’s bedroom door.

There’s no point in reminding him that’s impossible without power. He was just looking for an excuse to bolt, and once he’s out in the kitchen he turns that sink on full blast, which feels like a kind of permission for Mike to continue. 

Mike grits his teeth and screws his eyes shut, his face on fire. It feels wrong to still be touching his dick now that Jay knows he’s in here doing it, but it’s not fair! Jay got off in the bathroom, and Mike is too fucking close to go back. If he doesn’t come now he’ll die. This is life-saving action.

But he can’t get himself over the final edge, because knowing that Jay knows what’s he’s doing in here feels like knowing Jay knows what he’s thinking about while he does it, which surely Jay with his virgin innocence could never actually conceive of, things like, oh god-- Jay sobbing while pushed open wide on Mike’s dick, telling Mike not to stop even though he can barely breathe for how fucking full he is, his shoulders jerking and his face red and wet because he came all over himself with Mike’s dick still in him and he’s oversensitive, wrecked, his voice a hoarse squeaky pathetic begging thing--

And fuck, even this doesn’t work! Mike bites his lip hard to keep from groaning and imagines instead starting from where they are now: ordering Jay to get the fuck back in here and onto his knees, because this is his fault, and he shouldn’t just help Mike come, he should swallow it. As if that’s something poor little virgin Jay could even manage. He’d choke on it and would blink tears down his pretty cheeks while peering up at Mike in pitiful surrender, but he’d fucking do it if Mike asked, in reality, right now, oh jesus fuck, he _would_ \--

Mike bites the heel of his hand so hard when he comes that he’s certain there will be an ugly bruise, but he doesn’t give a fuck about that or anything because he hasn’t blown such a satisfying load in maybe ever, and he’s totally brainless for a full five seconds as his dick empties messily into his sweatpants. Even after the last throbbing aftershocks all he can do is pant up at the ceiling, almost forgetting that the actual Jay is out there in his kitchen. Then he hears the faucet shut off, which is concerning, because Jay must somehow know that he finished. 

Only when Mike pushes the blankets away does he remember how cold the room is. He’s still overheated from his orgasm and sweating under his three shirts. He changes into clean boxers, pulls on his jeans and goes into the bathroom to wash his hands and splash cold water on his face. Then he brushes his teeth, because he has an idea. He grabs Jay’s coat from the bedroom floor before heading out into the kitchen.

Jay is sitting on the counter by the sink, eating a S’Mores Pop Tart and looking guilty, as if he knows that Mike knows he knows-- But whatever, fuck it. They both jerked off in adjoining rooms. Jay thought about something, maybe Snake Plissken. Maybe something else. Mike thought about Jay. Now here they are in Mike’s freezing kitchen, Jay eating that Pop Tart and swinging his legs like a kid while Mike tries to work up the nerve to do what he’s planning. 

“How can you eat these things?” Jay asks, shifting his gaze down to the Pop Tart. “It’s pure sugar.”

“That’s the idea. And you’re eating it, so.”

“I’m hungry, and it’s all you’ve got.” Jay looks guilty again after pointing this out. “Do you need a loan?”

“You know what I need,” Mike says. He’s not even sure what he meant, but he’s pleased when Jay looks startled by it and stops chewing his Pop Tart for a dramatic moment before swallowing it down. “You want your coat?” Mike asks, holding it up.  

“Sure,” Jay says. He looks cautious, like he knows Mike is up to something. He pops the last bite of Pop Tart into his mouth and is still chewing when Mike walks over to wrap the coat around him. 

Mike lingers there, right up in Jay’s face and almost standing between his legs, close enough to smell the cardboardy graham cracker of the Pop Tart on Jay’s breath. Jay swallows the last of it and sits up a little straighter. He’s searching Mike’s eyes, then sniffling, blinking, biting his lip. He would never, ever make the first move. This is why he’s a virgin, and Mike fucking loves it, so much that he wants to plant his flag in Jay and never let anyone else near him. 

“So, I was thinking,” Mike says, still holding on to both sides of Jay’s coat, as if it won’t stay wrapped around him without Mike’s assistance. “You should try kissing, just once. To see if you like it.” 

“I don’t--” Jay gets pink-cheeked and blinks more rapidly. “I don’t know, um. What?” 

“Don’t get all flustered, it’s just me.” 

“I’m not! What-- Shut up. What are you doing.” 

“I’m just asking for your permission to demonstrate.”

Jay scoffs. Mike knows he doesn’t want his permission asked for. 

“So?” Mike says. He tugs Jay’s coat forward, and Jay with it. When Jay spreads his legs so Mike can fit between them, Mike knows it’s fucking on, but he wants to make Jay ask for it. “Do you want to see what it’s like? Want me to show you?”

“I--” Jay looks down at Mike’s mouth, then up into his eyes. Mike’s heart is beating fast already. He imagines Jay’s is pounding. 

“Hmm?” Mike says, halfway there already, swooning in and tightening his grip on Jay’s coat. “You want it? Tell me.” 

“Mike--”

“Just say yes or no, Jay.”

Jay can’t even let himself do that, but he gives Mike a bashful little nod as his face gets bright red, his eyes locked on Mike’s and his pupils expanding. 

Mike closes the last tiny distance between them and shuts his eyes without really meaning to, then opens them again when their lips touch with a shock of sensation that he wants to chase down like prey. Jay’s eyes are open, too, but they drift shut when Mike licks slowly across his bottom lip. Jay makes a soft sound of something like disbelief when Mike licks him again, and Mike uses this opportunity to slip his tongue between Jay’s lips and kiss him for real, deepening it further when Jay grabs him with both arms and pulls him closer, his knees creeping up against Mike’s sides.

Mike didn’t think he’d have to instruct himself not to moan, but he barely contains one because the taste of Jay’s mouth is fucking phenomenal. It’s the cheap chocolate and marshmallow goo from the Pop Tart, plus he must have brushed his teeth with his finger in Mike’s bathroom because there’s a minty something, too, and this combination of flavors on Jay’s warm, wet, uncertain tongue is making Mike weak-kneed with the feeling that he never wants to stop doing this. He could kiss Jay like this for _days_ , because it feels incredible and because Jay is kissing him back like he’s been starving for it, every slide of his tongue against Mike’s just the right amount of clumsy and desperate. This has really always been the best thing about Mike’s life, this feeling when everything he needs and wants and loves meets what Jay wants to give him with a perfect, shameless rhythm, when it feels like nobody else in the world would get it, not like this. 

Mike’s eyes are shut now, and he’s gripping the sides of Jay’s coat hard enough that he feels like it’s going to rip in two around Jay’s back. He wants it to, wants to rip away everything left between them, carry Jay back to the bed and fuck him so hard that it makes the motherfucking news, with some headline like: JAY THE VIRGIN SUBVERTS EXPECTATIONS BY LETTING BEST FRIEND FUCK HIM FOR FREE (THE DICK WAS THAT GOOD, FOLKS). 

Feeling somewhat like he’s losing his mind, Mike pulls back to breathe. Jay gives him a few heavy, dazed blinks, keeping his arms and legs locked around Mike and not letting him get far. It feels good to huddle close like this in the cold kitchen, the heat of their combined breath making a kind of mini warm front between their faces.   

Mike is afraid to speak but he’s got to say something, and it probably shouldn’t be, _I want you to sit on my face_ , or _jesus christ I love you so much_ , which are the first two things that come to mind.

“How do you taste so good?” Mike asks, already wanting more.

“I ate a Pop Tart,” Jay says.

Mike laughs. Jay cracks a smile and then they’re both laughing, then kissing again.

Mike melts back into it and lets himself moan. Every time their tongues meet Jay’s legs tighten around him in response, his hands sliding up the back of Mike’s neck and into his hair. He’s greedy for it already, not letting Mike pull back to breathe again. Mike doesn’t care about breathing, just switches tactics by leaning down to kiss Jay’s neck, not minding his teeth as he sucks and licks at Jay’s skin, which tastes even better than his tongue did.

“ _Mike_ ,” Jay says, voice cracking.

“Hmm?” Mike lifts his head, afraid maybe he went too far too fast. Jay just looks confused, his face flushed and his lips all shiny and swollen. 

“Huh?” Jay says, like he’s brainless just from this. 

“You said my name?”

“Oh. I--” 

Jay blinks and unwinds his arms from around Mike’s neck. He looks like he just woke up, and when he reaches down to tug at his jeans Mike knows it’s because he’s hard again. Mike is well on his way, his dick filling out fast and doing a little throb thing when Jay licks his lips. 

“I should go,” Jay says, pushing at Mike’s chest, and it’s like the heat goes out of the room all over again, the warm, frantic, who gives a fuck energy they’d generated for each other replaced with an icy fear that plunges through Mike like a starship’s systems dying off, like crops withering. Jay wiggles out of his grip and slides off the counter, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his coat.

“Go-- Where?” Now Mike’s heart is pounding and it doesn’t feel good. It’s like he forgot to anchor a boat and now he’s adrift, truly fucked. “What are you doing? Hang on--”

Jay is making for the door like he’s going to leave without his shoes. When he gets there he curses and turns back for Mike’s bedroom. 

“Jay,” Mike says, trying to make his voice sound commanding. It’s suddenly all shaky and comes out sounding pathetic instead. “You don’t have to go, what are you doing? You-- If you didn’t like that, it’s okay, we don’t have to--”

Mike hears himself tripping over his words and makes himself shut up. Jay is hurrying into his boots in the bedroom, avoiding Mike’s eyes.  

“It’s fine,” Jay says, which means _what_? He gets his second boot half-laced and glances up at Mike with an expression on his face like he’s begging Mike not to block him from leaving the room. 

Mike steps out of the doorway. He’s not going to fucking make Jay stay here. He didn’t think-- Doesn’t understand--

“Jesus, I’m sorry!” Mike says as Jay hurries past him. “I didn’t think you’d hate it that much.” 

“I didn’t hate it!” Jay doesn’t turn back, making a beeline for the front door. When he pauses to zip up his coat, Mike can see that it’s an attempt to hide his persisting boner. Despite having this sudden bucket of ice water dumped over his head, Mike’s boner is also persisting. 

“So where are you going in such a goddamn hurry?” Mike asks. 

“I need to go home and take a shower.” Jay stops at the front door and gives Mike that begging look again, as if Mike is still preventing him from running off. 

“Let me walk you there,” Mike says. 

“It’s okay, I have my car, I drove--”

“Then let me walk you to your car! Some fire escape person might be out there waiting for you.” 

“No, I lost them on the way here, they were on foot and I was in the car. I’ll be fine.”

“Jay, what the fuck!”

“Nothing the fuck, Mike! I just need to go, okay, jesus. Thanks for letting me stay, and thanks for, um, for--” 

Jay glances at the spot on the kitchen counter where he was sitting while they shared what Mike had thought was a mutual moment of pure bliss. Mike looks wistfully in that direction, too, wanting to go back there.

“Fine,” Mike says, still angry, also still hard. “But we should talk later today about the plan.”

“The plan?”

“For the remainder of this shitshow. We need to get more paid appearances lined up, and we should see a lawyer about a contract that has a clause saying you can cancel the transaction at any time, so you’ll be legally protected when you do. The winner will sign it as long as it says they get to keep their money if you don’t go through with it.”

“But.” Jay blinks and rearranges his coat over his boner. “But I am going through with it.”

“With-- What? No, you’re not. We decided--”

“I didn’t decide anything! You just told me not going through with it was an option. But I can’t turn down a million fucking dollars and only collect a few more appearance fees to cover the tax bill, Mike. That would be insane.”

Like he did when this whole thing started, after Jay randomly confessed his virginity, Mike stares at Jay, stone-faced and waiting for him to crack a smile, to say he’s joking. This time, however, Mike doesn’t expect it to actually happen. The bad feeling that’s growing into a thunderstorm of agony in his gut tells him otherwise. His boner begins to sink. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jay says, and his eyes get soft in a way that hits Mike like a gut punch, hard. “You know I’m right. A million dollars, Mike! For one stupid-- Transaction, that will probably last ten minutes. No less than an hour, anyway. We’ll put that in the fucking contract.” 

“You can’t,” Mike says, without meaning to. 

“Can’t what? You’re the one who had this idea in the first place! I’ll give you ten percent, how’s that?”

“A hundred thousand dollars?” Mike closes his eyes and shakes his head. This time he really is going to hurl. “No, I don’t want it. You’re not doing this. I won’t let you.”

Jay makes that recoiling disbelief face again, the one he made when Mike asked if he wanted company on the night before the Ellen taping. 

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Jay says. 

Mike knew that was coming, and this time he can’t hold it in:

“Since when!”

The disbelief on Jay’s face flashes to hurt, then shifts into something more like rage. 

They’ve never had a real fight. Mike has never even thought about that until now. Why would he? Jay never defies him. He isn’t prepared for this on any level. 

“Since now, I guess,” Jay says. His voice is hard, and his hands curl into little fists at the ends of his coat sleeves. “And you’re right, it’s about time I started telling you no.” 

“Jay, just-- Fucking calm down, listen to reason--”

“Taking the million dollars is listening to reason! You don’t want me to listen to reason, you want me to listen to you!”

“What the hell do you even need that kind of money for? What are you gonna do, buy ten thousand more Gremlin arms? They didn’t even make that many, Jay!”

“I need it so I won’t have to go along with your humiliating, half-baked schemes anymore, for one!”

“Fine, great!” Mike needs to get Jay out of here quick. He feels like he’s being devoured by wolverines from within, and like Jay just told him he should have said no when Mike asked to kiss him, because apparently it was that awful, unwanted, traumatic, whatever. “Go ahead, do whatever you want,” Mike says, pointing at the door. “Yeah, start making your own decisions. See how far that gets you, without my help. See how you like being fucked for money while the world looks on.” 

“Again!” Jay shouts, pointing an answering finger at Mike. “This was all _your_ idea!”

“Well, maybe it was a stupid fucking idea, Jay! Maybe that’s possible!”

“Seems like it worked pretty well to your advantage! I offered you a hundred thousand bucks, and I fucking meant it! Now suddenly you don’t want it?”

“I don’t need it! I can take care of myself!”

Jay looks pointedly around Mike’s power-less, freezing apartment as if to contest this, gives Mike an angry sneer and then leaves, slamming the door behind him. 

Mike kicks over one of the chairs at his kitchen table, then another. He stands there afterward feeling bad about this, almost enough to start weeping into his hands like an idiot over these fucking chairs lying sadly on their sides, as if the chairs are Jay.

“Fuck!” he shouts, mostly at himself. 

He’s lived a pretty consequence-free life so far, and can’t handle the idea of Jay being mad at him for longer than it takes him to roll his eyes. Nor can he handle the idea of Jay giving some millionaire his ass and then smacking a hundred thousand evil dollars into Mike’s hand with resentful victory. Meanwhile, also: did Mike fucking hallucinate that kiss? Was Jay not lapping at his tongue like he was trying to suck Mike’s soul out through his mouth? And holding onto him like he had gone feral for how much he liked it? What is _happening_?

Mike paces around the apartment in an aimless, growing panic. He hasn’t felt this shitty in a long time, and his usual response to any sort of shitty feeling is to get wasted, but it’s like nine o’clock in the morning and he has no money for booze. He has no money for anything! Certainly not enough to compete with whatever sick fuck is going to buy Jay in three days’ time. 

As the hours pass and he mopes around his apartment with nothing to distract him from his growling stomach and wretched heartsickness, he considers various ways he might sabotage the auction. He could go to the press and claim Jay is not really a virgin. But then Jay would just outright hate him. No, it’s got to be something better than that. He can’t cost Jay a million dollars. Their friendship wouldn’t survive such a betrayal, and Jay deserves the money. He just doesn’t deserve to have to spread his legs for some creep in order to get it, and suddenly Mike feels like he personally, literally will die if anyone else has Jay like that, ever.

If only Mike could place the winning bid. It’s impossible, of course, but imagining it gives him a shallow, cold comfort as he lies on his couch moaning miserably and trying not to think about the sweet little noises Jay made against his mouth while they kissed. If Mike won the auction, he’d place the final bid anonymously. Jay would arrive to the transaction site, which would be some luxury hotel room arranged by Mike in secret. Filled with dread about who awaited him there, maybe a gross old man or psycho sadist, Jay would be nervous as fuck and white-faced, shaking. Then he would see Mike waiting for him and, what? In Mike’s fantasy, Jay breaks into a huge grin and runs into Mike’s arms. He kisses Mike’s face all over and thanks him a thousand times for saving him, then of course pulls him into the bed and says that he would have given it up to Mike for free, if he’d just asked, and that he only stopped Mike from kissing him in the kitchen because he was afraid one thing would lead to another and his million bucks would go up in smoke when Mike took him back to the bedroom for a pounding. 

It’s a dumb fantasy. Mike realizes this. Jay is not government-certified virgin meat; if he wanted to get fucked ahead of time he could, and the winner of the auction would be none the wiser. Though it is true that Jay isn’t much of an actor.

When he’s too hungry to wait any longer, Mike goes into the kitchen and eats the last S’Mores Pop Tart in the box. It tastes like Jay did this morning, only not even half as good, and Mike feels like he’s consuming the bloody remains of his own shredded heart as he woefully swallows it down, but he’s got no choice. It’s the only food he’s got left.

If only he was rich. If he had money, they never would have gotten into this mess. But if he had the kind of money the winning bidder has, he never would have had to take a shitty VCR repair shop job, and never would have met Jay, and he can’t even think about that right now. He can’t live without Jay, in any hypothetical alternate reality and certainly not in this one. He also can’t live with himself if Jay ends up sleeping with someone for a million bucks just because Mike backed him into a corner by coming up with this idea in the first place, then helped it to snowball into a living nightmare.   

Mike pulls out his phone and opens a text to Jay, then just stares at the blinking cursor. What’s he going to do, apologize? That’s not his style, and apologies won’t help Jay now. What Jay needs is some way out of this where he doesn’t have to give up the money. 

Mike closes the text message without sending anything and opens up Twitter. Jay now has over 850,000 followers. His last tweet was from yesterday: 

_Thanks @theellenshow for having me on! Real fun time!_

“You dork,” Mike mutters, his heart melting. 

When did he fall in love with motherfucking _Jay_? What is he supposed to do with this feeling? He’s unfamiliar with it, even from his experiences with women. Wanting to fuck Jay was one thing, but this is some real soul-tearing-apart bullshit, and he’s got to do something about it before it drives him out of his mind.

He groans, reading through the replies to Jay’s tweet about being on Ellen. Many of them are love declarations featuring crying emojis. Plenty of people are saying they wish they were rich enough to buy Jay, that the winner of the auction is so lucky, and that they would pay ten million dollars for him if they could. 

This is all inane hyperbole, of course. Nobody but Mike knows how this really feels: the desperation, the envy, or this sudden, horrible certainty that he really would lay down ten million bucks for Jay if he had it. Fuck the rich prick who holds the winning bid. If only Mike was rich, if only--

Rich. 

That’s the ticket. That’s the key to all of this.

Finally, Mike has an idea. He gets his coat and stuffs his phone in his pocket. He hopes Jay isn’t at the VCR repair shop, but it’s a safe bet that he won’t go there after being harassed by those girls yesterday. And that’s good, not because Mike doesn’t miss him already, but because Jay can’t know what Mike is plotting, not yet. 

It might just be crazy enough to work.


	5. Chapter 5

An hour after shuffling through his old files at the repair shop, Mike is knocking on the door of a run down house in the burbs outside the city, hoping the schmuck who listed this as his home address on his job application hasn’t moved away since Mike fired him. 

“I’m looking for Rich,” Mike says when an old woman in a maroon-colored sweatsuit opens the door to peer at him suspiciously. “Does he still live here?”

“Who wants to know?” 

“Uh, he used to work for me.” Mike had actually insisted on calling this guy ‘Jay’ back then, as a private joke to himself during the period of two hours or so when Jay had been in an argument with Lightning Fast corporate over his salary, threatening to quit. It had all been Mike’s scheme to get them both an extra two bucks an hour, and it had worked. He’d never planned on keeping Rich employed for more than a day, or ever seeing him again, for that matter. “I’ve got a new business opportunity for him,” Mike tells the woman when she narrows her eyes at him and looks him over. 

“He’s down in the basement,” she says, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. “This business opportunity pay well?”

“Oh, yes,” Mike says, though he doesn’t actually plan on giving Rich a cut. “Very well indeed.”

“Huh. Well, good luck convincing him to work. Follow me.”

Mike doesn’t like how dark it is inside the house, with the curtains pulled over most of the windows, and the basement looks even darker when the old lady points down a carpeted staircase with wood-panelled walls. There’s a dim TV-screen glow from down there, and the faint smell of powdered cheese. Mike thanks the old lady and heads down to find Rich, who unfortunately represents his last chance to maybe solve this thing without letting everything get screwed up for good. 

“Make yourself decent, Dick!” the old woman shouts as Mike makes his way down the stairs. “There’s somebody here for you about a job! I’m sending him down!”

“What?” Rich shouts back. 

The old lady responds by slamming the door at the top of the stairs, leaving Mike in the near-dark of the basement with this weirdo who Mike cursed at rather violently last time they saw each other. He makes his way to the bottom of the stairs, feeling along the wall so he won’t trip. When he turns the corner he sees Rich sitting in front of a TV on a dumpy old sofa, holding a video game controller and giving Mike a confused look that quickly morphs into anger.

“You!” Rich says. “Fuck off, I’m not falling for your fake VCR repair job again.” 

“It wasn’t fake! I mailed you your goddamn W-2, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah, for my nine dollars of take home pay. Get outta here, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not here about that kind of work.” Mike looks around the basement as his eyes adjust. There are peeling video game and movie posters on the walls, which are otherwise lined with bookshelves overstuffed with books and comics, adorned here and there with action figures. “I’ve got something much grander in mind,” Mike says, walking over to stand in front of Rich’s TV. 

“Likely story,” Rich says, snarling. “I know your type. You’re just looking for another chump to pull one over on. Well, you already pulled one over on this one! So screw off.”

“You misunderstand me, Rich. I’m not looking for just anyone for this job. I need someone with a particular, specialized knowledge. Only you will do.” 

“Me? What kind of knowledge are you talking about?”

Rich puts the video game controller down and crosses his arms over his chest, still frowning slightly but also looking interested now. This is precisely how Mike tricked him into taking the VCR repair job: by flattering him, suggesting that only Rich could appreciate the _nuances_ of the position, what with his _extensive_ knowledge of basement-dwelling nerd bullshit. Of course, Mike had phrased that last bit differently. He knows how to handle these types. But in this case, he actually does need this guy because of something he’s personally familiar with.

“Remember during your interview, when you were telling me about your last job?” Mike says. “The night shift security thing, at that bank?”

“Yeah,” Rich says, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“When we were talking about comics later, and I said it was stupid how villains were always trying to rob banks in them, ‘cause that’s unrealistic in these modern times, you mentioned that bank you used to work at had such shitty security that it wouldn’t actually be that hard to pull off a real robbery. Remember that?”

Rich shrugs. “Yeah. So what?”

“So you think that’s still the case?”

“What, with the bank? Oh, definitely. The manager’s still there, he’s friends with my uncle. That’s how I got the job. He’s a real moron hick. They don’t know what they’re doing over there. When I tried to tell them how to improve the situation, they canned me, as I explained.” 

“Yes, you did explain that.”

“So what’s this business opportunity bullshit?” Rich snorts and shifts back on his bean bag chair, grinning. “Wait, are you-- Are you telling me you want to rob the bank? Is that what this is?”

“Hypothetically,” Mike says. “What chance would two intelligent criminals with insider info on how the system works have of getting, say, a million bucks from this bank’s vault, due to the inadequate security?”

“Wow, you’re serious.” Rich is still grinning. He obviously enjoys being referred to as intelligent. “Also desperate, I guess? Did the VCR repair shop shut down or something?”

“Never mind why I’m asking. Just answer the question.”

“Hmm, well.” Rich looks off into the distance and scratches at his chin. “Sure, it’s possible. I’ve always maintained that I could do it if I had the right kind of help. Not sure you’d qualify, though.”

“What qualifications are you looking for?” Mike asks, barely restraining himself from snapping back with an in insult. Now’s not the time. 

“The ability to follow orders, for starters,” Rich says. “Something tells me you’d have trouble with that.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mike says, unable to resist. “You don’t know me. I’m here asking for your help, aren’t I? Your expertise? Doesn’t that imply I’d be willing to listen to your instructions?”

“Not necessarily. I’d also need someone capable of stealth. You’re sorta big and clunky, no offense.” 

Mike can see now that Rich is enjoying this opportunity to insult him. Maybe it’s fair, after the abuse Mike hurled at him last time they saw each other, but Mike’s patience for this sort of shit is very thin. He grits his teeth and reminds himself what’s at stake here: Jay, who suddenly feels like everything Mike has and can’t afford to lose. So, everything.

“I might not have the ideal cat burglar build,” Mike says. “But if you disable the security system the way you say you can, would it matter?”

“Perhaps not.” Rich narrows his eyes. “How would I know I could trust you, though?”

Mike considers the question, uncomfortably aware that he’s being put to a test here. Rich wants him to humiliate himself, most likely. He wants Mike to offer up some vulnerability so that he can hold some of the cards. It’s doubtful that they’ll move forward with any of this unless Mike complies. 

“What if I tell you the reason why I need the money?” Mike asks, mumbling this resentfully. 

“Why should that make me trust you?”

“Because it’s really fucking embarrassing, okay?”

“Go on,” Rich says, his mouth tugging into a grin as his eyes narrow.

“Have you heard of Jay the Virgin?” Mike asks, his voice already tightening with annoyance. But maybe he needs to practice saying some of this out loud, and who cares what this loser thinks, anyway.

“That guy on the internet from Milwaukee?” Rich says. “That embarrassment to the whole state of Wisconsin?”

“Shut up. I mean. Yes, him.” 

“What about him? Oh, jesus, do you want to buy him? Are you some obsessed fan?” Rich screws up his face and makes a gagging noise. “I don’t know if I can support that kind of endeavor via crime, tell you the truth.”

“It’s not like that at all! I hate his stupid fucking fans more than anyone. I know him in real life, we’re best friends. He’s the guy who you replaced at the shop, the one who was re-negotiating his contract. I got him into this mess thinking it would be, I don’t know, funny, or, just, I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t think this would happen, and now I gotta save him. Because I’m also in love with him. Unfortunately.”

Rich’s expression is hovering somewhere between amusement and horror. He stares at Mike for a long time, evaluating this offering of humiliation. 

“Huh,” Rich says after a while, his brow still creased. “That’s rough, buddy.”

“Yeah, it is. Anyway, I’m desperate for cash and I need it fast. The auction ends in three days. So can you help me rob this bank or what?”

“You want to rob a bank so you can buy your friend’s virginity for a million dollars?” 

“I need a little over a million, actually, and there’s more to it than just me buying him, okay, but for your purposes, sure. That’s the gist of it.” 

“Wow,” Rich says, arms crossed over his chest as he gives Mike a satisfied, judgemental smirk. “That’s some seriously dark shit. You know what? I’m into it. I’m gonna help you.”

“Great.” Mike feels dirty already, and consoles himself with the thought that he’s going to cheat Rich out of his cut when all this is said and done. He has to let Rich think he’s the smart one for now; it’s all part of the plan. “So where do we start?”

Mike spends the rest of the day in Rich’s basement, drawing up maps and going over plans. The bank will be serviced by an armored truck on the upcoming Tuesday, which is the day before the auction ends. This is when the funds from the vault are most vulnerable to theft, Rich explains. By the time the time the old lady upstairs calls Rich for dinner, which she’s apparently serving at five o’clock sharp, Mike is half convinced that he’s solved everything by enacting this brilliant Plan B and half convinced he’s managed to drive himself fully insane with some combination of poor life choices and lovesick mania. 

“Meet me at the Denny’s near the VCR repair shop tomorrow, just before midnight,” Rich says as Mike is making his way up the stairs, Rich climbing behind him. 

“What for?” Mike asks.

“I’ll tell you when you get there. Until then, lay low. Don’t tell anyone what we’re up to.”

“No shit! You either. Don’t go bragging to your mother about how you’re about to be wealthy.”

“She’s my grandmother, dumbshit, and of course I won’t. See you tomorrow.” 

Mike heads away from Rich’s house, glad that they’ll be meeting elsewhere to further discuss the plan. He has to wait for a bus back to the city, and it’s getting cold. The thought of returning to his dark, freezing apartment and not even going out for beers with Jay first makes him groan. He pulls out his phone, and his heart does a full on leaping somersault when he sees a text message from Jay. How embarrassing. But there’s no denying that he’s so eager to read it he almost fumbles his phone into a pile of dirty snow. Jay’s message is shorter than he hoped, but still good news:

_sorry I was weird_

_It’s okay_ , Mike sends back, before he can overthink this. _You’re always weird, I’m used to it._

Waiting for Jay’s response is physically painful, and Mike regrets the stupid joke almost at once. He should have called instead, or asked what Jay even means by ‘weird.’ When he finally gets a response it’s not particularly encouraging:

_ha, yeah._

_Are you okay?_ Mike sends back. 

Jay’s response comes quickly this time: 

_yeah. I’m staying with my sister just in case._

Mike stares at his phone, wanting to pitch it into the street so that the oncoming bus will run over it. He’s not even sure who he’s angry at: Jay? Himself? Jay’s sister, who lives in Kenosha with her dumb husband and stupid kids? Jay would really rather be there than at Mike’s place? He’s that fucking freaked out by the idea that Mike might try to kiss him again? 

_Guess I won’t be seeing you at work tomorrow_ , Mike sends.

Jay doesn’t immediately respond. Mike groans and boards the bus, which is crowded. He has to take a seat near the back, next to an old man who smells like bologna. When Mike’s phone buzzes again he doesn’t want to look, because he knows what Jay’s response will be.

_yeah I’m gonna use my sick days I guess. don’t want people coming in and bugging me._

What about afterward, Mike wants to ask. Will you ever be back. But he knows the answer to that, because Jay already told him: if he can afford not to work there, he won’t, and when the auction ends and Jay’s virginity ends with it, he’ll have a million reasons not to hang around with Mike at the shop anymore.

 _I hate this_ , Mike types, but then he deletes it without sending and shoves his phone back into his coat pocket. He tells himself it’ll all be fine once he has that money, wins the auction, and confesses his feelings to Jay in some dramatic speech that will fix everything. Then he tries not to think about how that last part feels like the most outlandish hope of all, more so than successfully robbing a bank in two days’ time. 

He goes by the repair shop to loot the supply of ramen they keep there, cursing to himself when he sees they’re down to just two packets. Newly miserable, he heats one up in the shop’s microwave and decides he might as well just sleep on the couch in the back room. It’s better than going home to his ice cold apartment, where he’ll probably find another warning about his forthcoming eviction taped to his door. He might as well be evicted, since every room in that place will now just remind him too strongly of Jay: the kitchen where they kissed, the bedroom where they held each other all night long, and even the bathroom, where Jay jerked himself off into the sink, presumably.

He can’t sleep, so he drags out an old TV, hooks up a VCR and starts watching movies. It feels like shit to watch them alone, especially here, but it’s this or getting on the internet to see what everyone is frothing about tonight in relation to Jay and his auction. At one point he does use his phone to check the auction site. The winning bid is still sitting at a million bucks. 

When the movies don’t help him feel anything but more painfully alone and awake, Mike switches to browsing for porn on his phone. Should he watch gay porn? He’s tried it before. It was all right, enough to get him off but nothing special. He browses through some videos in the gay section on his usual site, but nobody in them looks sufficiently like Jay, and their lack of resemblance to Jay makes them all seem hideously ugly in comparison. Will he hate himself if he beats off to one of the videos of Jay that they posted on the auction site? Probably, but he hates himself anyway at the moment, so he sighs and opens one up. 

It’s the third video they did, of Jay sitting on a barstool in this very room, looking uncomfortable and sheepish and so fucking adorable that Mike groans. He resists the urge to press the phone against his face like a moron, as if the image on the screen would feel or smell or taste like Jay. 

“So, Jay,” the Mike in the video says, “How would you describe your temperament?”

“My temperament?” Jay says, and he almost grins. “That’s like something you’d ask about a dog.” 

“I’m trying to get an impression of what sort of partner you’ll be in bed, smart ass. For your potential customers.” 

“Oh, god. Uhh, well. I’m pretty chill, I guess. I go with the flow?” He winces at his own phrasing and shrugs. “I mean, I think I’m, uhhh. I’m generally agreeable? As a, uh, companion? So whoever wins the auction, you can call the shots. I’ll just go with it.”

Mike wrinkles his nose when he remembers that at this point Jay thought Plinkett would definitely win the auction with his fifty thousand dollar bid. The thought of Jay taking off his clothes and doing whatever Plinkett asked is beyond repulsive, almost enough to make Mike want to take the bus over to Plinkett’s house and beat the crap out of him just for good measure. But at least Plinkett was the devil they knew. 

Too worked up about this to jerk off, Mike pauses the video and screws his eyes shut, retreating to fantasy to try to calm himself down. If this bank robbery works the way he’s planning, he’ll be the winning bidder, and in his imagination this scenario can be as uncomplicated as he likes. And what _would_ he ask Jay to do, exactly, if he was the paying customer? He opens his pants, tugs his dick out and gets to work coming up with the list. 

He imagines they’re making a very different kind of video. Or maybe not altogether different, but far less tame. They’re not in the shop, they’re in Mike’s apartment. Back when it had heat. And in this kinder version of the universe, there was no virginity auction at all. This is just something they’re doing for fun: making a video where Mike tells Jay what to do, and Jay does it, breathless and bashful but without hesitation, eager to please him.

It would go something like--

“Tell me what your sickest fantasy is, Jay.”

“Do I have to?” Jay would ask, whining.

(Because even in Mike’s fantasy, Jay is a petulant little brat.)

“Yes. You have to. Do as I say, now.”

Jay would huff and turn red but would ultimately comply: “I want, to, to-- To be tied up and helpless, so that if anybody were to do anything to me, it wouldn’t be my fault. It wouldn’t make me dirty, if I liked it.”

“If you liked it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what sort of dirty things are you afraid you might like.”

Jay would press his lips together and get redder.

“What would make you feel dirty if your dick got hard for it?” Mike would ask, zooming in on Jay’s face with the camera. “Having a cock in your mouth? Would you have to tell yourself you had no choice but to suck dick while you creamed your pants for how much you liked it?”

“Nnh, Mike--”

At this point Jay would be tenting his pants and shaky all over, almost wet-eyed for how much he wanted Mike to put down the fucking camera and finally _do_ something to him like he’d wanted for so long.

And god, Mike would, he finally would-- He’d throw the camera down (breaking it! who cares!) and yank Jay up from his knees and into his arms, would lift him off the fucking ground entirely. They would kiss all the way to Mike’s bed, where Mike would throw Jay down (more gently than he had the camera, not breaking him) and tear his clothes off. Jay would be going crazy for it, pupils blown wide and mouth open, lips wet. He would hold Mike against him like his life depended on it, like he would die if Mike stopped kissing him, and would cry out like someone had stuck a pin right through his soul when Mike’s dick first pushed into him, not in pain but in relief, because there’s only one pin in the world that Jay wants stuck directly into his fucking soul, and it’s Mike’s. 

Mike may be losing his mind, but he doesn’t care. He jerks his cock faster and bites his lip until it hurts, arching his back and imagining Jay in place of his hand, Jay riding his dick and throwing his head back, his chest wide open for Mike’s roaming hands and his shameless voice all broken from moaning Mike’s name over and over, raw and scratched up, filthy in a way that he could only ever let himself be for one person, for Mike.

When Mike comes he swears he can hear the precise way Jay would say his name while bouncing on his cock, the way he’s maybe let himself shout it when he’s beating off to thoughts of Mike fucking him into his mattress, which is something the Jay in Mike’s fantasies has definitely done. 

Mike’s certainty about the real Jay maybe doing this fades as his orgasms recedes, and even while his dick is still throbbing in his grip he can feel the answering darkness closing in, because Jay isn’t here. He’s not even in the next room guiltily washing come off his hands, not even in the same city. 

Mike goes into the bathroom and mournfully cleans himself up. He feels tired now, desperate for sleep, and worried that he’ll never be able to sleep again without Jay hugged against his chest. God, that was good. Had he even appreciated it enough while he had it? Had he really lay there smugly thinking he’d have it again, maybe every night from then on?

He goes back to the couch and flops down onto its sagging cushions, thinking about all the times he passed out here and woke up with his head on Jay’s shoulder or in Jay’s lap. He tries to believe that Jay letting him do it over and over again means something. Jay fell asleep slumped against him more than a few times back here, too, and why didn’t they just start making out when this happened? Where the fuck have Mike’s scheming, greedy instincts been on this golden opportunity to have the only thing that matters now, after all these years? 

He sleeps eventually, uncomfortably, tossing and turning on the threadbare couch. At one point he has a nightmare that he sends Jay a picture of his dick and Jay responds with a laughing emoji and then blocks his number. He wakes up to the distinct feeling that someone is entering the shop, and at first he’s flooded with joy, because at this time of night it must be it Jay. 

Then he comes to and realizes it’s actually someone trying to break in. For once, Mike remembered to lock the door before passing out in back, and he makes sure his pants are done up before stumbling out to flick on the light in the shop’s front room, startling the people who were fucking with the front door away. 

“That’s right, get lost!” Mike shouts, charging toward the door but not daring to open it. He squints out at the street, wondering what the hell those people thought they were going to do if they got in here. Fuck, is nothing sacred? What has he done, inviting these brazen villains into their lives? It feels like everything’s ruined, but he’s still got his bank robbery plan. There’s still a chance he can fix things.

He manages to get back to sleep, but it doesn’t feel restful, and every time he rolls over in an attempt to get comfortable he remembers what it was like to be buried under all those blankets in his bed last night, curled up around Jay, the way Jay had clung to him and that boner Jay had in the morning, everything that lead up to their protracted, perfect, Pop Tart-flavored kisses, which cycles him all the way back around to angry misery. Daybreak brings no relief, and he remains on the couch with his coat draped over him like a pathetic excuse for a blanket, leaving the shop’s door locked as their usual business hours creep by. Fuck potential customers right along with Jay’s slobbering fans. Mike is done with this place, anyway. After he robs that bank and dumps every stolen cent into Jay’s hands, they can move to a whole new town. He’s through with blizzard-ridden springtimes in Milwaukee forever. 

The day passes slowly. When he gets up he eats the last ramen packet, glad that he’ll be able to stick Rich with the bill at Denny’s later. He checks his phone and reads a few articles about Jay. The highest bid on the auction remains at a million dollars, and many people in the trashy news business are remarking on this. Jay has about a hundred thousand more followers. He hasn’t tweeted since the Ellen show mention. 

_You should Tweet_ , Mike sends, just for an excuse to text him. 

Jay responds after a few minutes:

 _Why?_

Mike tries to picture Jay where he is now: crashing in his nephew’s bedroom, stretched out on Pokemon sheets in a little twin bed and staring miserably at his phone. Waiting for Mike to text him? Waiting to see what his fate holds, auction-wise? Both?

 _For your fans_ , Mike sends, not sure if he’s making fun of them or of Jay. His default is to make fun of Jay, and now it seems obvious that it’s because he’s always resented Jay for holding so much of his attention without even trying, for showing up in Mike’s life wearing clothes that were ten sizes too big, with those tragic teeth and even worse facial hair, and becoming the center of Mike’s universe anyway. The sneaky, slowly developing hotness was the kiss of death. Invisalign and a Fitbit sealed Mike’s fate. There may have been some chance of avoiding full-fledged slavering lovesick devotion if Jay had stayed dumpy, but there was no going back once he evolved into his final form. Maybe he knew what he was doing from the start.

Jay doesn’t respond to the jab about his fans, so Mike tries to come up with something else to send him. Something nicer. But not too nice, goddammit. Jay is torturing Mike by not being here, after all.

 _Any more interviews lined up?_ Mike asks.

_You tell me, manager_

Mike flushes. There’s something kind of wonderful about being referred to this way. Almost like it’s a nickname. Pet name?

 _I haven’t lined anything up_ , Mike sends, _Because you seemed to hate the last one_.

_Yeah, I don’t want to do any more press._  
_The advertising part is over._  
_We met our goal and then some, jesus._  
_Now just gotta ride it out_

There’s a beat after that last message from Jay where Mike debates making an off-color joke, but then Jay makes it himself, sorta:

_ugh. no pun intended._

Mike would laugh if he didn’t feel like crying. No, no, Jay can’t ride someone else. Not for a million dollars, not for anything. It’s a vile thought.

 _Kinda assumed you’d fired me as your manager_ , Mike sends. 

_Why  
Cause I yelled at you?_

_It was a first!_ Mike replies, as if he’s proud of Jay for this milestone. Maybe he is, a little.

Jay doesn’t respond right away. Mike imagines him considering his response, typing and deleting things, chewing on his bottom lip. 

_Do you really not want ten percent of the money_ , Jay finally asks.

Mike’s heart clenches up painfully, but he doesn’t hesitate to reply. He knows his answer, bank robbery or not.

_No, I don’t._

_Why not_

That’s a harder question. Mike starts to sweat under his shirt.

 _Because I want you to call the whole thing off_ , Mike sends, before he can stop himself. 

Maybe he can call off the bank robbery, too. And then what? Jay goes to jail for tax evasion? No, they could get more appearance fee money, they could work something out, or maybe just run away together, move to some remote island and hide out from the U.S. government for the rest of their lives. At least it would be warm there, some tropical-type place. Though living in a place like that would probably be expensive as fuck, plus there’s plane fare, and neither of them has a passport--

 _Easy for you to say I should just call it off_ , Jay sends back, after a while.

_Actually, it isn’t._

But Mike doesn’t send this one. He deletes it and grimaces at his phone. No, fuck this. He’ll just rob that bank, win the auction, and sweep Jay off his feet at the last minute as if it was all a piece of cake. Better that than admitting anything isn’t easy for him, ever. It’s not like Jay is going to listen to him, anyway, if he tells Jay why he wants the auction called off. What would Mike even say? _Because your first time should be with someone who knows you better than anyone and loves you more than anything, namely me, and that should be worth more to you than a million bucks?_ Jay might not agree, and Mike would pretty much rather die than take that gamble and lose.

 _My sister thinks I’m crazy_ , Jay sends after some time has passed. _But she’s excited that I can help her pay off her student loans._

_That’s fucking stupid!_ Mike sends, so furious that he sits up to hunch over his phone, snarling down at it while he types as fast as he can. _She can’t have your money! Fuck that!_

_I didn’t say I was gonna give her anything._  
_I mean, I might, but_  
_Just giving an example._  
_Even though she thinks I’m crazy, she gets it about the money._  
_You were right all along, Mike._  
_Somehow_  
_This was a brilliant idea, and I’m gonna be rich._  
_I’m not mad at you._

Mike wants to launch into a tirade at Jay for not being mad at him. Jay should be mad. He should hate Mike, probably! And that he doesn’t means what exactly? Mike holds a sofa cushion over his face and screams into it, wanting to travel back and time and just never do any of this, except for the part where they kissed. But he could have done that anyway. Many times. For eight fucking years they could have been kissing like that every day, Invisalign and all. Except, of course, if Jay didn’t like it. He did run away, like, immediately after their first kiss. All the way to Kenosha. 

_Are you mad at me?_ Jay has sent when Mike looks at his phone again. 

Yes, Mike wants to say. He’s mad because Jay bolted, even after kissing Mike like they were both having the same epiphany, and for not jumping at the chance to cancel the auction when Mike told him he could, also for not doing his taxes for five years. Which, come to think of it: when was the last time Mike filed his? 

_I gotta go_ , Jay sends, before Mike can respond. _My sister wants me to help make dinner._

 _I’m not mad at you_ , Mike sends, feeling like an idiot.

_ok. talk later. bye._

Mike wants to lodge several complaints. First of all, fuck Jay’s sister for asking him for money already and expecting him to help cook meals for her kids. If Jay were staying with Mike, he’d be able to put his feet up. Mike would rub Jay’s shoulders and bring him food, which admittedly Jay would have to pay for. Regardless, Mike is suddenly overcome with the need to do something to show Jay how good it could be if he became Mike’s tiny boyfriend and ordered Mike around for a change. He almost sends a text to this effect: _Just come home! I will literally do anything you want!_

He’s not unhinged enough to actually make this demand or this offer, and refrains from sending anything else at all, the rest of his day consumed with counting the hours until his meeting at Denny’s with Rich and sneering at various media takes on Jay as he browses the internet, increasingly hungry. By the time he leaves the shop, peeking outside cautiously at first in case any nefarious characters are around, he’s almost light-headed from the need to eat a real meal. 

Fortunately, it’s only a short stroll to the Denny’s, and for once it’s not snowing. Even with no snow falling or harsh wind blowing in his face, Mike feels colder than ever, like some source of heat that used to be reliably inside him has packed up and left town.


	6. Chapter 6

Rich is not only already there waiting for Mike at a table near the back of the restaurant, he’s already ordered several plates of food. Even when Mike sits down across from him, Rich continues eating vigorously, sawing into a giant waffle with a syrup-covered piece of fried chicken on top. Mike stares at the food desirously and resists the urge to grab a french fry, his mouth watering from the smell of the chicken. He cranes his neck looking for the wait staff so he can order something for himself, but none are in sight.

“You’re exactly on time,” Rich says when he looks up. “I like that.”

“Great. I’m so glad you like that.”

Mike schools himself to tone down the sarcasm when Rich gives him an irritated look in response.

“Remember, you’re still auditioning to be my partner in--” Rich looks around and lowers his voice, leaning over his plate and lifting his hand to his mouth, “Crime,” he whispers, lurid and dramatic.

Mike has to fight hard not to roll his eyes. 

“Fine,” he says. “What more do you need from me?”

“We’re here to complete a business transaction. Let me do the talking.”

“Business? What? With whom?”

“There he is now,” Rich says, gesturing to the restaurant’s front entrance with his syrup-dripping fork.

Mike turns to see a tall, bald man with glasses enter the restaurant, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He seems twitchy as he makes his way toward their table, looking this way and that as if he expects to spot somebody watching him. 

“Jack, meet Mike,” Rich says when the guy sits down in the booth beside him. 

“Really,” Mike says tightly. “We’re using our real names?”

“Relax!” Rich says, and he cackles. “Our real names, jesus. Jack and I have been friends for years. He’s good people.” 

“Rich and I go way back,” Jack says, nodding. “We met online. Playing video games.”

“Well, of course you did.” Mike is regretting this whole thing more with every minute. But he can’t rob the bank without Rich’s insider knowledge, and if he can’t get that money, all is lost. “What’s this about?” Mike asks, gesturing to Jack. “I didn’t agree to bring in consultants.”

“He’s not a consultant,” Rich says. “He’s a salesperson.”

Jack smiles creepily and places his duffel bag on the bench seat between him and Rich before unzipping it. 

“Oooh,” Rich says, leaning over to peer into it. “You brought the good stuff.”

“Only the best for you, Rich, of course.”

Mike leans up over the table to see what they’re talking about. 

“What the fuck!” he says, too loud, when he sees what’s in there: a bunch of fucking guns, some of them pretty serious-looking.

The waiter of course chooses this moment to approach the table. Jack hurriedly closes the duffel bag, leaning over it and leering at the waiter in the most conspicuous way possible. Rich seems unconcerned and resumes eating. 

“Can I get you something, sir?” the waiter asks. He looks alarmed when he notices the expression on Mike’s face, which is probably something akin to enraged terror. 

“I, uh, no-- Wait, yes! Yeah, a bacon cheeseburger with fries. Do you serve beer here?”

“Um, no. This is Denny’s, sir.” 

“Denny’s serves beer in New York,” Jack says, sounding proud of himself.

“This is Wisconsin,” the waiter says, as if Jack might not have realized this.

“Right, yeah,” Mike says, barely able to think straight for how malnourished he is, not to mention the fact that he was just shown a huge duffel bag full of guns and is now sweating profusely under his shirt. “Uhhh, I’ll have a Coke, then. Thanks.”

“I’m good,” Jack says, and the waiter leaves. 

“What in the fucking hell is that?” Mike asks in a hissed whisper, pointing to the bag. “The whole point of this--” He glances at Jack, wondering how much he knows. “--Is that it’s a security loophole. Not a goddamn siege!”

“Of course we hope we won’t _need_ weapons,” Rich says, infuriatingly calm, as if he does this kind of shit all the time. Maybe he does, in video games. “But you have to be prepared for all contingencies in situations like this.”

“Okay, well, I’m not prepared to fucking shoot someone, under any circumstances.” 

“Ooh, look at mister moral high ground over here!” Rich says. “If that's the case, maybe you’re not the right guy for the job after all.”

“Why even do crimes if you’re not willing to get your hands dirty?” Jack asks, shaking his head as if he’s deeply disappointed in Mike. 

“Who _are_ you?” Mike asks, glaring at Jack and hoping to distract from the fact that he’s being emasculated by two loser video game nerds. “Where did you get all of-- Those?”

“Ha!” Rich says. “Like he’s going to tell you!”

“I know people,” Jack says, leaning back against the booth and visibly straining to be cool. “I get around, buddy. I’ve seen shit.” 

Mike can’t even deal with this fucker right now. He looks at Rich and realizes this is a crossroads. Rich is dead serious, staring at Mike like he could take him or leave him. And if Rich walks, Mike is fucked. This is his last resort. 

He tells himself he doesn’t have to use the gun, even if Rich makes him carry it. Of course he won’t actually fire at anyone, no matter what. He’ll take the fucking bullets out when Rich isn’t looking. Still, he feels like he’s losing his footing on reality altogether when he shrugs and nods, trying to play his agreement off as casual.

“Fine, whatever,” Mike says, though his racing heart feels like the clearest warning he’s ever had, as if his whole body is speaking to him in straight up English: _turn back now_. He thinks of Jay surrendering himself to the current high bidder and steels himself to go forward instead. “But you’re paying for this,” he says to Rich. “Since it’s your brilliant idea.” 

“Yeah, yeah, obviously. I’ll take that one and that one,” Rich says, pointing into the duffel. “And we’ll settle up over Venmo as usual?”

“You got it, buddy!” Jack says, cheerful. He passes Rich one handgun under the table, then another. Rich tosses a piece of bacon into his mouth before stowing both guns in the pockets of his saggy sweatshirt. “Rich, it’s been a pleasure as always,” Jack says, sliding out of the booth. “And it was lovely to meet you, Mike. Should you ever need to purchase anything of a delicate nature, look me up on Twitch. Username’s clownboy69.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me real soon,” Mike says, just glad that he’s leaving. 

Mike stares at Rich when Jack is gone, beginning to get the feeling he direly misjudged this guy. Rich just stares back like he doesn’t give a shit, chewing. When Mike’s food arrives, his previously tremendous appetite has departed, his stomach all twisted up from these developments. 

“I guess you’ve had occasion to buy guns before,” Mike says after he’s finished half his cheeseburger, forcing it down despite the ache of dread in his gut. He may not get another hot meal until all this is over. 

“Never mind about what I’ve done,” Rich says. “Just trust that I know what I’m doing now. I’ll need you to do exactly as I say on Tuesday night.”

Mike gulps from his Coke to hide his angry snarl. He hates doing exactly what anybody says. But these are desperate times.

“Of course,” Mike says, putting the glass of Coke down hard. “Should we meet again tomorrow, to go over the plan?”

“No, too risky. We shouldn’t be seen together after tonight. Which reminds me-- Are we gonna have any trouble because of your celebrity status?”

“My what now?”

“You’re in those videos, I realized. Your voice, anyway, in the virgin auction ads. Do people know who you are, how you’re related to him?”

“I’m not-- No, don’t worry about it. As soon as I get my share of the take I’m leaving town for good. I’ll nuke the auction site and all my social media on the way out.” 

Just the thought of doing so lightens something heavy that’s been lodged in Mike’s chest since all this started. Oh, to be free of other people’s asinine, unasked for opinions on him, Jay, everything.

“And what about the other one?” Rich asks, eyes narrowing. 

“The other what?”

“The virgin! Your friend! He’s on the goddamn TV, on the front page of the local news, he’s everywhere. If you’re hanging around with him after the bank job, there’s bound to be trouble. Scrutiny.” 

“No, no. Jay hates all of this attention. He’s going to-- He’ll be with me, but we’ll be like ghosts. Totally off the grid.”

“How do you know? You two cooked up this whole thing as a scam, I presume, and I guess you got cold feet because of your, ugh, feelings, or whatever. But how do you know he’ll be under control after the auctions ends?”

A flush of pleasure moves through Mike at the thought of Jay being under his control. God, if only. But he can’t get distracted by that now. 

“I just know,” Mike says, making his eyes hard. He’s not the only one at this table who knows how to wield a stone cold stare. “Don’t worry about it. All you have to do is lead the way to the money, take your half and then never see or hear from either of us again.” 

“Hmph,” Rich says, but he seems satisfied enough, returning to his waffle.

Mike makes his way back to the VCR shop when Denny’s shuts down at one o’clock in the morning, the wait staff shooing him and Rich out before Mike can order a milkshake on Rich’s dime. Maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t, because by the time he’s let himself into the shop his stomach is lurching uncomfortably. Everything feels so wrong, but he can’t be a chickenshit now. Big moves require big dick energy. He’s got the big dick all ready to go, queued up for action when this plan comes together. The energy will come at some point, maybe after he sleeps. 

He wants to text Jay before passing out on the back room couch again, but can’t think of anything to say except love confessions that are of no use to either of them now, while Mike is still penniless. Plus, he’s still working on mentally crafting the perfect one. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore his stomach pains as he goes over the usual highlights, soothing himself to sleep with the thought that Jay will be impressed by them. 

This shifts into dreaming, and in the dreams Jay is always just out of earshot, walking ahead of Mike and not acknowledging Mike’s pleading that he wait up, hang on, that Mike has to tell him something before it’s too late. The dreams take a somewhat lucid turn after that, and when Mike wakes up he’s crushed to realize that he only half-dreamed, half-imagined that Jay sent him a flurry of texts saying he was calling off the auction, coming home to Mike, never gonna leave him again. In reality, Mike only has five new emails from people who want to interview Jay before Wednesday, when the auction ends. It’s now Tuesday, Mike realizes blearily. The robbery will take place tonight, a half hour before midnight, just before the arrival of the armored truck. 

It’s eight o’clock in the morning, but Mike doesn’t give a fuck. He calls Jay, readying the excuse that he wants to confirm Jay doesn’t want to make any more media appearances. There’s likely money involved, more now that the auction is so close to ending, and apparently money is super important to Jay. Mike can’t blame him there. He used to feel the same way, like he’d do anything for money. Now he’d do anything to get some just so he can hand it all over to Jay as an apology for this disaster. Something tipped over in his brain and spilled all over the floor of his soul, and now his heart is in his throat because Jay isn’t answering his call. 

He’s probably just asleep. It’s fine. But when the call goes to voicemail, Mike thinks of the dreams he had last night, the ones that left him with this feeling that he’s going to miss his chance to confess, or that Jay won’t hear be able to hear him when he does, because it’ll be too late to matter.

“Hey,” Mike says, because he’s already let Jay’s voicemail record three seconds of awkward silence while he deliberates on what to say, and it’s not like Jay won’t see Mike’s name on his phone and know it was him breathing creepily into his mailbox. “Uh, I just. I have some emails from news outlets. But I know you don’t want to do more interviews. And you don’t need to. You only had to show up and, just. The whole world’s at your feet. I really did know that would happen, Jay. It wasn’t just a lucky guess. I didn’t know, um. That I would hate it. But. Anyway. Give me a call, if you want. Or don’t. You don’t need me now. You’re a worldwide sensation. I think they did a news story on you in Japan. Oh, god, forget it. Bye.”

That was a far cry from the love confessions he eloquently delivers in his fantasies, in cinematic scenes that leave Jay devastated with the need to be Mike’s forever. Mike mopes out to the shop’s front room and jumps back when he sees someone lurking just outside the door. He curses and stomps over to unlock the door when he sees it’s just Mr. Plinkett. 

“What do you want?” Mike asks, sticking his head out. 

“I came to see Jay,” Plinkett says. “I want to bid him farewell before his big day tomorrow.” Plinkett sighs dramatically, and his posture seems even worse after he’s expelled his breath, as if he’s a deflating balloon. “Guess I never had a chance after all.”

“Jay’s not here,” Mike says, and it hurts, as if he’s admitting that he failed to protect Jay, or just lost him somewhere along the way. 

“Oh? Well, I suppose I’m not surprised. This place must look like small potatoes to him now.” 

Mike winds up to berate Mr. Plinkett and kick his old ass to the curb, but something stops him. It’s the lost and lonely look on Plinkett’s face, or the defeated slump of his posture. It’s familiar. Maybe relatable. 

“I was about to go get some breakfast,” Mike says, though he had no such plan. He still has no money. “You can come with me if you want, and I’ll listen to your whole Jay sob story, as long as you pay the bill.” 

“Hmm.” Plinkett gives Mike a long look, as if he’s trying to figure out Mike’s ulterior motive here, which is fair. “Okay, I guess I could use the company. Feeling real down about losing the love of my life to some rich asshole who’s probably just buying him so he can brag about it to his buddies.” 

Mike grimaces at the thought of the person who plans to buy Jay spilling all the lurid details of their encounter to anyone. Particularly the press. But it doesn’t matter: Mike will rob the bank, Mike will win the auction, and only he and Jay will ever know what happens next.

He crosses the street to the little diner where he’s had many a hungover breakfast with Jay, irritated by how slowly Plinkett moves. When they’re finally seated across from each other at a booth, Mike orders coffee and the grand slam breakfast that comes with pancakes, bacon, eggs, toast, fried potatoes and sausage links. He tries not to judge himself when Plinkett orders the same thing. Mike has to load up on carbs and protein so he’ll be ready for tonight. 

“Man, I’m depressed,” Plinkett blurts as soon as the waiter leaves with their order. “I really got my hopes up there at the start. And not just about the sex! I was thinking, as long as I was paying for it, maybe ol’ Xandu wouldn’t care if I moved Jay into the house and had him around all the time.”

“Why would Jay want to live in your house?” Mike asks, sneering. 

“He could have been my sugar baby, that’s why! I didn’t realize my tiny prince was so hard up for cash, or I would have offered to pay for his services months ago.” 

“Yeah, well.” Mike’s stomach hurts. He hopes it will pass before the food arrives. “Looks like you lost your chance.”

“Dammit, it just ain’t fair. I’d have treated him right, too! He could have sat around watching shitty slasher movies all day long while I pampered him with my social security checks. I wouldn’t even have cared if he got fat again! I love a nice fat ass on a young man. But so much for that. Now I guess he’s set for life just for putting out once.”

Mike grunts and sips from his coffee. He doesn’t normally drink the stuff unless he’s stealing swigs from Jay’s mug at the shop. The taste of it reminds him of Jay. Everything does, suddenly. 

When the food arrives, they both tuck in and Mike is spared from hearing more about Plinkett’s depraved fantasies about being Jay’s sugar daddy. Mike lets his mind wander to his own fantasies in the meantime, trying to picture what a life with Jay as his little live-in boyfriend would be like. It probably wouldn’t be too different from how they spent all their time together before the auction: movies, talking, drinking, falling asleep together on the couch. But also there would be sex, glorious sex that would make Jay worshipfully grateful that Mike had shown him how good it could be, plus they’d go to sleep together every night and wake up together every morning. Mike wants that almost as much as he wants the sex, now that he knows how it feels. 

Jay had been so sweet in his bed, shivering against him and greedy for his body heat, red-faced in the morning with his boner poking Mike’s gut. Mike imagines Jay’s fussy hair care products lined up on his bathroom counter and feels a kind of physical weight piling onto his heart, making his throat tight.

“Are you crying, son?” Plinkett asks, staring at him from across the table.

“What?” Mike glowers, which does cause his eyes to sort of blur over with a sheen of something that isn’t tears, not really. “No! Of course not. Fuck off. I’m just-- Eating.” He sniffles and shoves more scrambled eggs into his mouth. It’s fine, _fine_. He’ll have it all solved by tomorrow, when he has the money to win the auction.

“Huh.” Plinkett takes a slurpy sip from his coffee mug and continues staring at Mike. “Guess this must be pretty hard on you, too.” 

“What?” Mike snaps, no longer sure this is worth the free meal. 

“The auction, the money, losing your partner in crime! And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re in love with him, too.” 

Mike sputters and frowns, shaking his head. 

“You’re insane,” he says, hating that he can see how red his face is getting, his reflection snarling back at him from Plinkett’s mirrored glasses. “What are you talking about?” 

“Why bother denying it? You don’t have to be embarrassed. I get it. I love him, too!” 

“Not like I do!” Mike shouts, so tired of every random fuck on the planet making that claim as if they know what they’re talking about, as if they know what _really_ loving Jay feels like.

His face is burning when he hears what he’s said and sees Plinkett snickering in victory. 

“Just as I suspected,” Plinkett says. “You’re in mourning because you blew the five million chances you had before now to take that sweet, sweet virginity yourself, huh?”

Mike says nothing, just gives Plinkett the most hateful look he can manage, barely restraining himself from kicking Plinkett under the table. He still needs Plinkett to pay for his breakfast.

“What makes you think Jay would have given it up to me before?” Mike asks when he’s calmed himself enough to speak without spitting curses. 

“What makes me _think_?” Plinkett boggles at Mike, his mouth hanging open. “Are you really that much of an imbecile? You didn’t know the whole time?”

“Know what? You’re not making any fucking sense!”

“That-- Oh, geez, forget it. What’s the use of explaining the obvious at this point? It’s not like your pathetic ass has the kind of cash to contend with the people who are after him now. Serves you right, really. What a blown opportunity. If I had a little blond twink trailing around after me, doing my bidding and giggling at all my shitty jokes, it’d take me about eight minutes to give him the pounding he was begging for. Not eight fucking years! But you do tend to take your sweet goddamn time getting things done, don’t you?”

Again, Mike can’t trust himself to speak without hurling the kind of abuse that will make Mr. Plinkett tell him he can pay for his own meal. He concentrates instead on gripping the table so tightly that it shakes, fighting the urge to tip it over and spill the remains of both their grand slams right into Plinkett’s lap. 

“Better hope whoever buys him isn’t a good lay,” Plinkett says, chewing toast. “Maybe if Jay doesn’t get swept off his feet by this rich fucker he’ll come sniffing around you again. Though maybe not, since he’s famous and beloved by the world now. He’ll be on to bigger and better things, I bet. And it’s about time! You were never good enough for him, if you ask me. You just got lucky that he imprinted on you in the old days or some shit, before our little grub transformed into the beautiful butterfly he is now.” 

Mike eats in silence, not tasting the food. He feels overheated and frozen with dread at the same time. But Plinkett doesn’t know about his bank robbery scheme, which will fix everything. Somehow, somehow, Mike is going to set it all right again. And he’s not going to think about Jay maybe having wanted him for eight years, not right now. Plinkett could be wrong, anyway. He is a proven moron. 

After breakfast with Plinkett, Mike wanders around town alone and on foot, heading nowhere in particular. The weather has suddenly warmed, not dramatically but enough to make an actual springtime seem like a real possibility while the sun is out like this, shining overhead in a cloudless sky. The many mounds of dirty old snow sparkle as best they can under this new warmth as Mike passes by. He checks his phone frequently for an hour, then gives up. Why would Jay call back in response to that idiotic message, anyway? What is there left for either of them to say, on the eve of the auction’s conclusion? Nothing will matter until tomorrow, when Mike can say: I’m here, I won the auction, here’s your money, sorry I got you into this, but now that I’ve fixed it can we just never be apart again? 

Or something along those lines. He’s still working on his speech. 

When he’s tired of walking around, he goes to the movie theater where he knows a guy who often lets him and Jay sneak in for free. It occurs to Mike now that this is possibly because this guy, like everyone else in the world apparently, is in love with Jay, too. Despite Jay not being present, the guy shrugs and lets Mike in without a ticket. He looks as depressed as Mike feels, so he must know about the auction. 

Mike picks a horror movie first. It’s the only one playing currently, some paint by numbers crap rated PG-13 and loaded with jump scares. He spends the whole movie imagining how Jay would react to everything if they had come here together as usual: the exasperated groans, laughter at inappropriate moments, and the times when he would lean over to Mike to whisper about how a character actor on screen had appeared in some long forgotten movie that inexplicably meant a lot to him as a kid and which he therefore considers a classic. Mike feels his phone buzz at one point and races to pull it out as if it’s a bomb that must be diffused, but the text he got is not from Jay. It’s from some morning talk show producer who got Mike’s number from a staffer at the Ellen show. He wants to book Jay for a live broadcast of the auction result tomorrow morning. Mike deletes the text and shoves his phone in his pocket, his heart still sputtering sadly from the excitement-disappointment roller coaster of those few seconds between pulling out his phone and seeing who had texted him, which was far more effectively horrifying than anything this movie has done. 

He spends the rest of the day at the theater, miserably transferring from one theater to another, and when he finally makes his way outside it’s begun to get dark. In five hours, he’ll be robbing a bank. Which is fine. Makes as much sense as anything else about his life ever has. 

He meets Rich at the rendezvous point at eleven o’clock sharp as planned, a drug store parking lot about five miles from the bank. It’s cold out again now that the sun is gone, and Mike isn’t wearing a serious enough coat, as usual, but he’s overly warm under it anyway, lit up by nerves. 

Rich is waiting in his car, giving Mike a stoic stare from the front seat that sends a chill down Mike’s spine. Who is this fucking guy, anyway? Mike gets into the car, because at this point he has no choice but to find out. 

“Is this loaded?” he asks when Rich slaps a shockingly heavy handgun onto his thigh. 

“Of course it’s fucking loaded.” Rich gives him a look like he’s insane and cocks his own gun. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I just-- I don’t want to have to fire this on anyone. That’s not the plan.”

“As I explained, the guns are a last ditch resort kind of thing. Just hold it in the guard’s face when I tell you to and keep your finger off the trigger if you’re so goddamn worried about it.” 

“The guard’s face-- What? I thought you said you could get him locked into the back of the vault--”

“I can. But he’s not going to be randomly inspired to do as I say. You’re going to have to threaten him with a firearm in order to get him back there. Then I’ll tie him up. God, do I really even need to explain this part? I thought it went without saying!”

Mike clamps his lips shut and listens to Rich’s instructions about how this is going to go. No matter how hard he tries to concentrate on exactly what Rich is saying and commit it to memory, he feels like he’s missing something, failing to fully understand. His mind wanders. He wonders what Jay is doing right now. Is he throwing up from nerves about his own terrible thing that is somehow happening soon? Is he okay?

“Are you with me?” Rich barks when he’s repeated the plan a second time, prompting Mike to nod at the finer points.

“Yeah,” Mike says, though he isn’t sure who he’s with right now-- Jay, probably. “I follow you around back, stay in the shadows while you approach the guard, wait for the signal and then ambush him.”

“That’s right. I’ll basically do the rest, except for the actual transfer of the cash to the car, which needs to happen in under ten minutes. We have to be out of there before the armored truck pulls up. If they show up while we’re still there, we’re fucked.”

“Got it,” Mike says. He swallows heavily. “This is gonna work, right?”

“Don’t fuck with my zen by asking that now! Jesus! Of course it is.” Rich secures a baseball cap over his head and gives Mike an angry stare. There’s a picture of a smiling corn cob on the hat. “Ready?” Rich asks. 

Mike nods, though the answer is, emphatically: no. 

Then his phone rings. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rich asks when Mike puts the gun down and gets his phone out. “Turn your goddamn phone off! It’s go time!”

“It’s--” Mike makes a pathetic gulping sound when he sees who is calling him. 

It’s Jay, of course.

“I have to get this,” Mike says, already knowing he can’t. “Please, it’s important--”

“Put the fucking phone away, now.” Rich isn’t pointing the gun at Mike, but he’s holding it in a way that suggests he might. “This isn’t a game, you asshole!” 

Mike gulps again and nods, both hands trembling as his finger hovers over the screen. He feels like he’s failing the most important test of his life when he declines the call, but that’s not true. A successful robbery is more important, and it's not a game, Rich is right. Mike is saving Jay’s ass by doing this robbery. Literally. Jay will understand about the missed call.

“Do not fuck with me,” Rich says, narrowing his eyes when Mike looks up at him after silencing the phone. “You’d regret it, believe me.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, you’re right. It’s time.”

Rich walks toward the back of the bank and Mike follows, already feeling like he’s watching someone else play a video game with his body as the avatar. Mike pulls on his ski mask provided by Rich and keeps close to the building in the way Rich told him to while Rich walks over to greet the guard who always has a smoke out back while he waits for the armored truck pickup. The guard does this after he’s unlocked the vault, to save time, because according to Rich he’s a dangerous idiot. Rich’s face is uncovered, as part of their plan hinges on the guy greeting Rich as a former co-worker and therefore not raising the alarm, instead allowing Rich to position himself between the guard and the alarm. Rich has explained that he will simply drop off the face of the earth and start a new life after he has his cut of the money, therefore not needing to conceal his identity. Little does he know that Mike will make off with the whole take, leaving Rich holding the bag for the robbery and thusly taking some of the heat off Mike while he and Jay make their escape. 

It’s perfect. It’ll work out great. Mike tries to channel something resembling zen or even a flimsy confidence in his own machinations as he waits in the shadows, watching Rich talking to the guard. He feels like he’s been elaborately sandbagged by Rich, who’d seemed so hapless and easy to fool when he was sitting in Jay’s chair the shop, but never mind. Nothing to be done about that now, and Mike isn’t someone to be trifled with either, godammit. He can hear himself breathing in shaky exhales, and he remembers his plan to unload the gun when Rich isn’t looking. He looks down at it and realizes with a stab of panic he doesn’t know how to unload a gun, then hears the signal from Rich to ambush the guard. He also feels his phone buzz in his pocket, a text coming in. 

Mike ignores his phone and rushes out of the darkness, gun lifted. Rich gives him a thumbs up, standing in front of the panel that would trip the alarm. 

“Hands up, motherfucker!” Mike shouts, and the fake voice he’s using comes out sounding a little bit like Mr. Plinkett’s, but that’s okay, that’s fine.

“Rich, the alarm!” the guard cries, but when he turns, hands up, he sees Rich pointing the second gun in his face. 

“Fuck you, Garrett,” Rich says with a sneering grin. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen? Didn’t I?”

Garrett gasps so dramatically that for a moment Mike is terrified that this is all a set up, but things continue according to plan as Garrett marches into the vault with his hands still raised, Mike and Rich both trailing him with guns drawn. Once they’re all inside the vault, Mike starts arranging the duffel bags he brought in while Rich ties up Garrett’s hands and feet. 

“Oh my god!” Garrett bellows. “You monster! You fiend!”

“Ugh, will you gag him?” Rich asks, standing once Garrett is tied up and on his knees. “Actually, fuck it.” He whacks Garrett in the back of the head with the pistol, hard enough to knock him out. 

“What the fuck!” Mike says. “I thought you weren’t going to hurt him!” 

“I forgot how much I detest him. Couldn’t resist.”

“Oh, wonderful, well now we’re committing bonus aggravated assault! So that’s great!”

“Shut your trap, he’ll be fine. And it doesn’t matter. We’re not getting caught, we’re good.” 

Rich hurries over to enter the security codes that will pop the vault’s cash drawers while Mike paces near the bags. He can feel his phone buzzing against his thigh, again and again and again, a flurry of text messages coming now. Without needing to look, without any time to, he knows they’re all from Jay. The terrible feeling in his gut seems to cackle and spread outward, crunching on his bones and eating him up from within.

And that’s when someone from out in the hallway calls, “Garrett?”

Mike has never experienced this level of terrified dread before: it’s like having all his bones removed at once, collapsing into a puddle of nothing but panic. The look on Rich’s face tells Mike he’s feeling the same thing. Which isn’t great.

“What the fuck?” Mike mouths without making a sound, eyes wide and locked on Rich’s.

“Garrett?” the person says again, walking closer. She sounds like a youngish woman. She sounds scared. “Were you shouting? What’s wrong?”

She freezes in place out in the hallway. She can’t have seen them yet, but she must feel them. Mike could swear he can feel her panic like a hot wall of shimmering air coming through the open vault door. 

Then the code that Rich entered into the cash drawers clears, three big drawers popping open with sinister clicks and spilling outward, revealing massive piles of cash stacked neatly inside.

The woman out in the hallway gasps and flees. Rich runs after her with his gun drawn. 

“Wait!” Mike shouts. 

“Start loading the bags,” Rich says, ignoring him as he trundles around the corner, pulling his sagging pants up with one hand while he points the gun with the other. 

“Wait!” Mike says again. “Don’t! Don’t hurt her!” 

It makes no sense that Mike feels like he’s more on that poor woman’s side than on Rich’s, but when he runs out into the hallway and alarms start blaring through the bank at full volume, he sees that Rich must feel the same way, because he’s not running out there to shoot the lady. He’s running right the fuck out the front door and away from the bank, toward his car. He’s giving up on the job, which has obviously been blown, and leaving Mike standing there with his mouth hanging open and a gun in his hand. 

He backtracks through the vault and makes a feeble attempt to run out to meet Rich at the car, but it’s hopeless. Rich is already peeling away at full speed. 

Mike runs back into the vault in a mindless panic, some autopilot idiocy in his brain making him very briefly think he can salvage this by grabbing as much of the money as he can, but as soon as he’s there he realizes that the tinny whine he can hear in the distance isn’t just his imagination. Cops are already on the way, the sound of their sirens coming closer. 

He runs out into the night, remembering to drop the gun when he’s halfway across the parking lot. By the time he finds a dumpster to crouch behind he knows it’s hopeless: cop cars are already screeching into the bank’s parking lot, and if he runs again he’ll be seen, maybe shot. He’ll doubtlessly be found if he tries to stay hidden, so close to the scene of the crime and breathless already, sinking down to a surrendering seat behind the dumpster. 

Despairing, heart slamming and hands shaking almost too hard to get his phone out, he pulls up the texts he got, wanting to read them before the inevitable happens. 

They’re all from Jay, of course. 

_11:31 pm: sorry I missed your call_  
_11:31 pm: my phone died and I had to go all the way back to Milwaukee for my charger_  
_11:33 pm: stopped by the shop but you weren't there_  
_11:34 pm: didn't want to hang around too long in case some weirdos came by._  
_11:37 pm: anyway, call me back, ok?_  
_11:38 pm: I feel like things got so screwed up_  
_11:38 pm: and I don't know what to do, about this auction or any of it_

Mike can hear the officers that are canvassing the parking lot approaching the dumpster he’s crouched behind when the next two texts from Jay come in, popping up on his screen and striking him in the chest like two little knives, right in his heart:

_11:40 pm: and I miss you  
11:40 pm: a lot_

He doesn’t have time to answer. He can’t even type and send ‘me too’ before the cops round both sides of the dumpster, guns drawn. Maybe it’s for the best, as ‘me too’ wouldn’t have made grammatical sense. But Jay would have known what he meant, maybe. He usually does.

Mike lifts his arms over his head, letting his phone clatter to the pavement. It feels like he’s dropping Jay himself, letting him fall and land hard, causing him to break. While Mike is being cuffed and read his rights, an officer swoops forward to grab the phone, presumably so it can be entered into evidence along with the recovered gun. 

As he’s marched toward the waiting patrol car that will bring him to jail, Mike wants to call back to the officer who picked up his phone: _do me a favor, tell that guy who says he misses me that I love him, and I’m sorry, and it’s all my fault._

But he doesn’t say anything, comfortably numb within the right to remain silent.


	7. Chapter 7

Mike gets his first visitor at the county jail two days later. He’s expecting to be charged with felony armed robbery and aggravated assault, and is awaiting the initial court hearing that will confirm this. Once he’s entered a plea he’ll be transferred to state prison until trial. Rich evaded the authorities and remains at large. All of this is information Mike has and yet can’t fully possess, as it can’t be real. One piece of information that he doesn’t have, as he’s been barred access to any media thus far, is how Jay’s virginity auction ended. 

His first visitor is of course Jay. When Mike takes a seat on the other side of the plexiglass-partitioned visitation booth and sees Jay giving him a stricken, white-faced look of horrified concern, he braces himself to get this further piece of information which will probably completely destroy him. 

“Hi,” Mike says into the two-way phone while Jay just sits there with his mouth hanging open, the phone on the opposite side of the glass pressed to his ear.

“Mike,” Jay says, forcing Mike’s name out like doing so physically hurts. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Well, no, but there’s no need to traumatize Jay further. Mike knows he looks like shit, unshaven and exhausted. Jay doesn’t look so hot himself, with big bags under his eyes and his hair styled sloppily, as if he did it with shaking hands. Despite this, he’s still the best thing Mike has ever laid eyes on, especially after two days in a jail cell. Even shaken and scared like he is now, Jay is perfect. Mike wants to press his hand to the glass partition between them like a dumbass. 

“How did this happen?” Jay asks. “What even-- What? Just, _why_?”

“Why do you think,” Mike says, not particularly wanting to get into it. Though maybe this is his only chance. 

“I can’t begin to fucking guess!” 

“Hmm. Okay.” 

“I suppose you’re going to say this is all my fault somehow.”

“No.” Mike shakes his head. “No, it’s my fault. All of it. Being broke in the first place, because I tried to push you into that wedding scam. This robbery horseshit, which was never gonna work. I can see that now. I must have lost my mind. I wasn’t really eating regular meals, or sleeping right. I’m sorry. And the auction.”

Mike tries to say he’s sorry again, for the auction specifically, more than anything, but his voice chokes away. Jay looks sad, but not for himself. Just for Mike.

“Someone won it,” Jay says. 

“Yeah. I figured. Who?”

“I don’t know yet. The winner was anonymous. We’re supposed to meet tonight, uh. To do the-- I already got the money. So.”

Mike looks away for a moment, his hand so tight around the phone that he’s sure it’s going to shatter into pieces in his palm. He looks back at Jay and blinks rapidly.

“Don’t do it,” Mike says. “Jay. You don’t have to.”

“Mike--”

“No, Jay, I’m serious. I was wrong. I was really fucking wrong. You’re worth more than that. More than a million bucks. More than anything. Please, just. If you give up the money and go to jail for tax evasion, it’ll be okay. We can be cellmates. It won’t be that different from how things were before.”

Mike is aware that he sounds crazy. He probably just _is_ crazy now, considering the bank robbery.

Jay shakes his head. His eyes are red-rimmed.

“I can’t,” he says, softly. 

“Fine, you don’t have to come to jail with me, but you still don’t have to go through with this auction shit. Just get the tax bill money some other way. Get a loan from your stupid sister, or do some more talk show appearances. Jay, there’s got to be some alternative--”

“No, I mean, I-- I don’t just owe fifteen grand anymore.” 

“Huh?”

“The million bucks, from the auction winner. It’s gone, I can’t give it back. I spent it.”

“ _What_? When-- How? On what??”

Jay swallows heavily. He looks left, then right, then back at Mike.

“I can’t tell you,” he says. 

“Excuse me? _What_?!”

“No shouting!” a guard on Mike’s side of the partition says, taking a step forward like a warning.

Mike nods at him and turns back to Jay. He’s shaking so hard he wonders if Jay can feel it through the phone. 

“Don’t ask me again,” Jay says as soon as Mike opens his mouth. “I’ll tell you someday, but not now.”

“I don’t understand,” Mike says, feeling like he’s dissolving into dust. 

“Me either,” Jay says. “I don’t get why you did this.”

“This?”

“The-- Fucking bank! Mike! I don’t understand why the fuck you’d ever get yourself into this mess!”

“Don’t you? Jay? Do I really have to spell it out?”

Jay makes a pained little noise that crushes what’s left of Mike’s heart, then winces and hangs up the phone on his side. 

“Jay!” Mike says, leaping out if his chair, panicked. He’s still shouting into his phone, as if Jay can hear him while he runs away. “Wait-- Wait! No, no, come back! Hang on, please!”

Mike is stunned, such that he doesn’t even react when the guard drags him away for that outburst and shoves him back into his cell. Jay just-- Left? He’s gone? He ran away? It happened _again_? And now, of all times, when Mike is at his lowest point? 

He stretches out on the bed in his cell and stares at the blank ceiling overhead. The cell has no window, since he’s only being held here until his first hearing, which should happen soon. It might be springtime out there now, snow melting steadily and temperatures rising. He should have asked Jay, but there was no time, since Jay bolted before their conversation had really even begun. Mike’s hands are twitchy on the mattress. He wishes he had his phone so he could send Jay a flurry of angry texts. It’s impossible that Jay already spent that money. He must be lying. 

But then, everything about this is impossible. Mike rolls over and pretends he might be able to sleep. He’s gotten about five hours total since he was arrested, feels like. He at least has regular meals again, though no appetite. 

He feels like he’s dying, slow and painful. It’s not even being in jail. Though admittedly that’s a big part of it. It’s knowing that Jay is going to give himself to that auction winner. Even if it’s not really his ‘self’ as such, like he said on Ellen. Virginity is just some lame bullshit concept that Mike used to garner interest in Jay’s auction. Mike lost his virginity in high school, to a girl who had an NSYNC poster over her bed, those freakish looking men with creepy fake smiles staring down at him the whole time. He lasted approximately a minute and a half and the girl later cheated on him with her manager at Arby’s, which caused Mike to break down in angry, humiliating tears in front of everyone who smoked with them under the bleachers during lunch period. There was absolutely nothing magical or special about any of it, and virginity itself is worth is exactly shit. It’s for suckers, the idea that it matters who gets to be first. That’s not what’s bothering him. It’s that Jay is going to be vulnerable, nervous, scared, and this anonymous person could do anything: laugh at him, hurt him, make him feel like shit. And not only can Mike not do anything about it-- in a really spectacular sense, as he’s currently locked in a fucking jail cell --it’s also Mike’s fault. He did this. 

As night falls, Mike tries to think about anything except who won the auction and what they’re currently doing to Jay. He holds his hands over his face and groans, pulls at his hair, feels like he’s going out of his mind. Finally he begs the guard for some paper and a writing utensil, just so he’ll have something to do. It takes a fucking eternity, but eventually the guard returns with paper and a bendy prison-safe pen that can’t be turned into a weapon. 

_Dear Jay_ , Mike writes, and then he just stares at the paper for a long time, resisting the urge to press it against his face and weep onto it in pitiful defeat. When the danger has passed and his eyes have stopped burning, he takes a deep breath and writes more:

_I’m still mad at you for running away before we really got a chance to talk. What the fuck, man? I miss you so much it’s like a knife in my gut nonstop, you come all the way out here to see me, and then you just go? Were you afraid I was going to say something you don’t want to hear? Well, guess what, buddy? I’m gonna say it in this letter, so if you don’t want to read it, you better tear this up and burn the pieces._

_(Please don’t do that, though. Please read it.)_

_Look, Jay. Look. Oh god. Fucking hell, here goes nothing. I love you, okay??? Obviously!! And I don’t mean like a brother or a friend or any of that shit. I’m talking IN love, like I want to put you in my pocket and carry you around everywhere I go and never be away from you, sleep with both goddamn arms around you in bed every night and watch you spend an hour doing your hair every morning. I’d probably get a boner for that shit, at this point. I love you so much and I fuckin blew it. I know I did, I ruined everything. But we’ll get to that. I need to think about something not-depressing right now so I’m gonna write about how I think this happened and why._

_(“This” being my falling in love with you, not being in jail. Though unfortunately the two are related.)_

_Let’s go all the way back to the beginning, shall we? The day we both got interviewed for the VCR repair shop job. I thought there was only one position they were hiring for so I glared at you in the waiting room. You just kinda stared back at me like you were confused but not intimidated. Then we got called in together and interviewed together because management didn’t really give a shit and was just looking for two warm bodies to fill those chairs at the counter while waiting for the shop to go out of business. So they handed over the shirts and left us there together, and when you asked me what my favorite movie was I said probably Ghostbusters and that spiraled into a discussion that’s pretty much lasted eight years, along with the shop because apparently they forgot to shut it down or something, kinda like a certain someone forgot to file his tax returns. Shit happens, whatever. The point is, pretty much the second I started talking to you I realized that I didn’t want to stop, which was a memorably shocking realization because that never happens, Jay. I hate most people, as you know. I start out hating people as a rule and they can earn my indifference if they work really hard, best case scenario. But it wasn’t like that with you. I was like, hey. This guy is all right. He’s pretentious as fuck but smart enough to almost pull it off. Some of his opinions about movies are wrong, but I can see where he’s coming from. And even more shocking, I want to hear more. Maybe this job won’t be so bad. Maybe my shitcan life is turning around at last!!_

_Because I’d never had a friend like you before, Jay. Sure I’d had friends. But they’d always sucked in some way or another. Being around other people always starts to feel like work sooner or later (usually sooner). With you it was like a relief. I craved your company and got pissed off (at you, sorry) if you weren’t around. I should have known this didn’t mean that I’d just found my ideal friend at last, since I’d never really given that much of a fuck about friendship before you came along. I should have realized at least seven and a half years ago that I loved being around you so fucking much not just because I like talking to you but because I like your face! And the rest of your body, too, even when you were chubby and looked like you didn’t bathe very often. Even back then I could see how fucking cute you were beneath that ungroomed veneer, I think because of your eyes. Though I’m embarrassed to admit I cannot say what color they are (??? not for lack of trying to figure it out), they are like these glittery portals into my happy place. When you’re looking at me and grinning and it’s because of some shit I just said, it’s like I’m the king of the fucking world and the only thing that matters is that you’re entertained and impressed and listening to me talk. How did I not figure out this means I’m in love with you sooner? Maybe it’s just ‘cause you’re a man and I’d never been in love with a guy before you._

_In fact, I don’t think I’d ever been in love, not really, before you. Not like this._

_Mr. Plinkett thinks you’re in love with me, too. Or anyway he seemed to imply it when I forced him to buy me a grand slam breakfast the other day. Maybe when you get this letter you’ll just be like, fuck, Mike is in love with me? Good thing he’s in jail so I don’t have to deal with that mess!! If that’s the case then maybe just don’t reply? But if you get this and you’re like, oh, thank god, Mike loves me back and he has this whole time, I’m so relieved that now we can be together, except we can’t because he’s in jail due to being a fucking moron-- If that’s the case, then please write back to let me know. That would be an enormous relief, even though I have screwed everything up and am looking at a possible (probable, let’s face it) 20 year jail sentence._

_Ugh, fuck this shit! I wish I was with you right now. I can’t even think about the person who is with you, whoever won the auction, but rest assured that if they harm a single literal or figurative hair on your head I will murder them with my bare hands as soon as I’m out of prison. And I won’t get caught this time! (So maybe do destroy this letter after reading it, as it would be evidence). I’m serious, Jay. I want to kill everyone who has ever hurt you. Is that even romantic? I don’t care. Being in love with you has given me bloodlust. I guess that’s appropriate since you love cinematic violence so much._

_Anyway, now on to how I messed everything up. Remember how I wanted you to marry Plinkett? But then at the last second I raced to the altar to stop the wedding? And then remember how I made your virginity auction website and was all excited? Well, I wanted to take it down pretty much as soon as I realized I wouldn’t be the winner, that other people would actually be bidding on you. Just like I couldn’t stand the thought of you actually marrying Plinkett. Planning a wedding and then planning your deflowering were both some kind of sick way for me to subconsciously imagine that I was gonna be the one marrying you, fucking you, having you for myself. Yes, I am clearly demented, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I could write how sorry I am for 1000 pages and it wouldn’t even convey half of it or do you any good._

_Jay, goddammit I don’t know what to do. I mean I guess it doesn’t matter because I have no choice either way, what I’m gonna do is go to prison and rot while you’re out there alone and vulnerable to all the crazies who are obsessed with you now, or maybe you will find some other schlub like me to be your friend or boyfriend or husband or bodyguard or whatever. I have no right to ask you to wait for me to get out of prison, even if you do have some kind of feelings for me, but jesus christ I’m tempted to because I don’t think you could ever find someone who loves you as much as I do. It’s crazy that now that I’m stuck in prison until I’m elderly I finally realize what my life’s purpose was all along, which is to make you laugh and make you come and just make you happy in whatever way you want, to take care of you the way you deserve. And now I’m stuck in here and I can’t even save you from this auction nightmare. Which just figures._

_What the hell did you spend that money on, by the way?? Ugh, Jay, fuck! I can’t stand this! How’d it all get so messed up? Well, I know how. Me._

_Anyway, it’s lights out here at the ol’ jailhouse so I gotta stop writing. I hope you’re okay. Oh god Jay, please be okay. You gotta be. I’ll shrivel up and die if anything happens to you while I’m in here. Not that you’re some helpless child. Though you are kinda child-sized, for a grown man. Which is another thing I love about you. That night we spent in my bed together was fucking incredible, even without sex (though I did really, really, REALLY love kissing you in the morning. I hope you didn’t really hate it?). You FIT with me, Jay, you just do. I’m king-sized, you’re fun-sized, and it’s motherfucking perfect. Don’t you think?_

_(Oh christ what if you don’t. That would be brutal. How embarrassing.)_

_Ok I gotta sign off for real now. I don’t know what more to say except I’m sorry this confession is so late. Maybe too late. I shoulda said it years ago. I shoulda asked you to marry me instead of telling you to marry Plinkett. I shoulda offered to show you how amazing sex can be, and made you feel so good that you’d only ever want it with me from then on. If only. Jay, just hang in there. I don’t know if it will mean as much to you as I’m hoping it will, but in the midst of this whole media shitshow and people fawning over you in frothing Tweets from hell, just know that somebody out there really does love you, for who you really are, and is gonna spend the rest of his miserable life missing you every fucking second of every day._

_Love, (which I guess goes without saying considering I just spent this whole letter writing about how much I love you, but there it is anyway)  
Mike_

Mike folds the letter up without daring to read over it, already embarrassed that it exists. He isn’t even sure when he’ll have the opportunity to send mail out, so for now he tucks it into his shirt, close to his heart. He stretches out on his prison cot and again stares up at the ceiling, desperately trying to pretend that his heartbeat against the folded up letter is sending out some kind of psychic comfort to Jay, who could probably use some right about now. 

 

**

Two days later, Mike has his first court hearing. He’s represented by a public defender named Josh who has hipster glasses and a scraggly beard that Mike finds inappropriate for court, though he supposes it doesn’t matter. They’ve got Mike on camera in the bank’s security footage. It’s an open and shut case and he’s a goner. 

“I’d encourage you to take a plea deal,” Josh says. “But the state isn’t offering one thus far.”

“Thus far,” Mike mutters, mimicking him unkindly. 

“We’re at least going to try to get rid of the aggravated assault charge, since your partner was the one who struck the guard on the head.” 

“Don’t call him my partner. Fuck that motherfucker. They really still haven’t caught him?”

“Nope. Apparently Rich Evans was some kind of secret criminal mastermind all along. Though, admittedly, he didn’t get the money.” 

“It almost seemed like he didn’t even give a shit about the money,” Mike says, snarling at the thought of Rich out there somewhere, laughing to himself and thinking he got away with it. “Seemed like he mostly just wanted to hit that one dude in the head.” 

“Well, luckily for us the guard only had a mild concussion. I think our real work here is minimizing the assault charges as much as possible. We can’t really argue that you weren’t arrested on the scene in a ski mask when the bank’s alarms were going off, but we can get creative with reasons as to why, if you like. We’ll paint Rich as the mastermind behind the whole thing, of course.”

“Of course,” Mike says, both of his hands curling into angry fists. Rich as the mastermind of Mike’s failed attempt at robbery. This is peak humiliation, though maybe he shouldn’t think of it that way. Surely there’s more to come.

Mike pleads not guilty to both charges, since there’s no plea on the table and therefore no reason not to try to pretend he’s innocent. The state isn’t offering anything because they correctly believe they don’t need anything from him. Garrett the security guard gave them Rich’s name, so Mike didn’t even have that as a bargaining chip. 

“I won’t be able to view the security cam footage until the state enters it into evidence,” Josh says when they meet after the hearing, Mike’s trial date set for four months from now. His request to be let out on bond was denied, but it’s irrelevant anyway. He doesn’t have a cent to his name, let alone thousands of dollars for bail, and the only person who might have bailed him out has apparently managed to spend a million dollars in the past week. “Is there anything in the footage that you think might help us?” Josh asks. “Or particularly hurt us?” 

“I got mad at Rich for hitting the guard,” Mike says. “I don’t know if the footage has audio, but if it does you can probably hear me telling him not to hurt the lady who was there.” 

“Hmm. Interesting, okay. Well, I’ll be in touch. Realistically, I think you’re looking at around ten years of prison time plus five to ten of probation, but we’ll try to knock it down as much as we can. How do you feel about testifying?”

“Not great.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m not exactly likeable.” 

Josh doesn’t argue this point. Mike thinks of bringing up his infamy as well, in case Josh doesn’t recognize him as the mean-voiced guy from the videos of Jay the Virgin, but he’s too dispirited to go on discussing his case, the awful reality of this whole thing crystallizing around him as if his eyes have finally adjusted to the light from the flames of this hell he won’t be leaving anytime soon. He says goodbye to Josh and is lead out of the courthouse in handcuffs by two armed guards who will take him not back to his little cell at the county police station but to the state prison up north, where he’ll have a cellmate who might try to kill him and all the other fun that goes along with real jail. 

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Mike says as the guards are loading him into the prisoner transport van.

“No,” the female guard says. “Keep your mouth shut.” 

Mike supposes it’s for the best. He wasn’t really looking forward to the two guards laughing uproariously when he asked them if Jay the Ex-Virgin had been on TV recently, or even on Twitter, and if he seemed okay. 

As the van pulls out away from the courthouse, Mike stares straight ahead, watching out the front windshield from the windowless, caged-in backseat where he’s sitting, still cuffed. He supposes this is the last time he’ll see a public road for four months, and after his trial he’ll really have to savor the sight, because it’ll be at least ten years before he reenters the world once that’s said and done. He thinks dimly that he should have married Jay so they could have conjugal visits, but if he’d married or at least conjugated with Jay in the first place none of this would have happened. 

He still has the letter to Jay hidden under his prison uniform, tucked now into the waist of his pants. Maybe he’ll mail it once the dust has settled at the state prison. He’s not even sure if he’ll have letter-sending privileges right away. He should have asked Josh about that, or just given the letter to him to send, since it will almost certainly be confiscated when he’s strip-searched upon entering this new prison. He squirms against his restraints with dreadful resignation, imagining some prison guards reading the letter out loud to each other during their lunch break and cracking up. Maybe it’s best if Jay never sees it, anyway. Whole thing’s a lost cause at this point. 

“Aw, fuck,” one of the guards mumbles when they run into standstill traffic on the highway. “What’s this bullshit?”

“Something’s on fire up ahead,” the other guard says, and Mike cranes his neck so he can see the tall plume of dark smoke in the distance. “Here, get off at that next exit. We can take the backroads.”

“Fuck, that’s gonna take an eternity.”

“At least we’ll be moving. This shit’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

The van crawls slowly toward the exit, and at first the the side streets are choked with traffic, too, everyone else having had the same idea. As they get further from the city the traffic thins out more and more, and once they’re well on their way to the prison, which sits out in the middle of nowhere in northern Wisconsin, the van is alone on winding country roads lined by trees, already far from civilization. 

Mike has almost nodded off in the backseat when the van hits something in the road, at least one tire popping and sending the vehicle careening sideways, both guards cursing. He’s wide awake, heart pounding, once the van comes to a screeching stop on the side of the road. 

“The fuck was that?” one guard says. 

“Tire blew. Shit! Get the spare, I’ll call it in.”

“Fuck that, I’m not changing the tire while you sit in here on your ass. You get the spare, I’ll call it in.” 

“You were driving, fucko, so you gotta change the tire!”

“Just ‘cause I was driving doesn’t meant it was my fault, I didn’t even see anything in the road--”

Suddenly there’s a tremendous _thump_ on the top of the van, dead center over Mike’s head. He makes an embarrassing noise of alarm and holds his cuffed hands over his head, wrenching himself against the seat belt that doubles as a restraint. Both guards have gone silent, their eyes wide as they draw their weapons. 

“What was that?” the male one shouts at Mike. “What’d you do?”

“Me?” Mike points at the roof of the van as best he can with his hands cuffed together. “I didn’t do anything, it’s something outside!”

“He’s right,” the woman says. “Fuck, what the-- Listen.” 

There’s another noise from the roof of the van. Measured footsteps. Someone or something is up there, walking around.

“Uhhh, this is bad,” the male guard says. 

“No shit. Are we rolling out together, or--”

Before she can finish, the windshield shatters. Impossibly, the thing that has shattered it is someone’s fist, and before the male guard can get a shot off, he’s ripped out of the driver’s seat by the same hand that broke the windshield, out of the van and onto its roof. The woman throws open the passenger side door and jumps out, screaming. Shots are fired. Mike can’t see anything except the empty road ahead through the busted windshield, and the van rocks from side to side as if a fight is taking place on top. Mike’s heart is slamming and he’s cursing under his breath in a freestyle stream of terror, struggling against the seat restraint and getting nowhere. 

“All right, okay!” the woman guard shouts from outside the van, somewhere on the road’s shoulder. “Don’t shoot!”

Mike is gonna piss himself, or worse. What the fuck, what the _fuck_ \-- The van shakes again, now as if whoever was standing on top has dismounted. He hears the woman pleading for her life, and then she’s silent. There’s a dragging sound followed by a stretch of silence that is probably less than a minute but feels like an eternity to Mike, sweat gathering over his temples and streaking down both sides of his face. He’s totally helpless. Does their attacker even know that there’s a prisoner in the van? Surely he’s at least going to check. How the fuck did he smash a bulletproof windshield with his _hand_? What is _happening_?

Mike cringes when he hears footsteps outside. Whoever’s doing this is approaching the van again. He tries to come up with some way to bargain with their attacker and has jack shit in mind when the van door comes flying open, the sudden blast of daylight half-blinding Mike as he cowers and blinks up at the man who is standing outside and staring in at him with a unnerving, placid look on his face. 

The guy is very tall, taller than Mike, with long blond hair that’s pulled back into a neat ponytail, He’s wearing a leather jacket over a plain white t-shirt and jeans, and he’s lean but strong-looking, though nowhere near strong-looking enough to break even a regular windshield with one punch. 

“Come with me if you want to live,” he says, stoic and grim. Then he grins. “Sorry, I gotta say it. Every time, I can’t resist.”

Mike says nothing, frozen in disbelieving terror, and can only flinch away when the guy lifts a giant weapon of some kind and moves toward him with it. 

“Oh, it’s okay,” the ponytail man says, showing Mike the weapon, which looks like a heavy duty bolt cutter. “This are just to cut you free. I’m here to retrieve you, and we’ve got to move fast. Hold still while I cut the cuffs off.”

“What,” Mike finally manages to say, mouth dry.

“No time to explain now. We’ll talk later, on the plane. You can call me Len.”

Len cuts off Mike’s handcuffs and lets them drop to the floor of the van, then cuts the restraining belt and hurries Mike out of the van, tugging him up from his seat when he can’t seem to make himself move. Mike’s legs barely work once he’s standing, and he stumbles forward in panicked confusion, blinking in the sunlight and distantly aware that he’s cold in his thin prison uniform as Len marches him toward the tree line. Once they’re under the cover of the trees, Mike spots the two guards, both passed out and tied up in efficient-looking knots with black rope. 

“They’ll be all right,” Len says, as if Mike gives a shit. He still hasn’t gotten his brain back online enough to put a proper thought together, and he’s shaking all over as they walk deeper in the woods, Len prodding Mike along at a brisk pace. 

“What is happening,” Mike says when he can speak again. 

“We’ll talk later,” Len says, more firmly this time, and with enough warning in his voice that Mike resolves not to ask twice. 

After just a few minutes they reach an impressive-looking motorcycle parked in the woods. Len retrieves a helmet from a compartment on the back and hands it to Mike before mounting up. Another helmet is hanging on the bike’s left steering bar, decorated with a subtle inlay of a fist indented on the left side. Len adjusts his ponytail before slipping his helmet on, then turns to give Mike an expectant look from behind the visor. Mike shoves the other helmet over his head and gets onto the bike behind Len, feeling clumsy and terrified and not sure where to put his hands.

“Hold on,” Len says, voice muffled through the helmet. “We’re about to go real fast.”

“Uh--” Mike says, and then the bike powers on and seems to blast forward in a near-levitating speed in the same moment. Mike curses into the helmet, splattering the inside with spit, and grabs at the impossible man in front of him with both arms, shamelessly leaning against him when the bike goes even faster.

Mike can’t see very well through the helmet’s dark visor, under the shade of the trees. He doesn’t care and almost wants to close his eyes, his stomach pitching as the bike seems to relentlessly increase speed, weaving through the trees and blasting straight through every obstacle on the forest floor like it’s all just a bunch of flimsy twigs. Mike breathes in shallow pants inside the helmet, feeling hot all over despite the chilly air that’s blowing up under his thin prison uniform as it billows around him. Then they’re breaking free of the tree line and shooting out on a road, racing into the flow of spotty traffic and weaving around cars instead of trees.

Mike considers how he must look, hugged up against an insane motorcycle man with a long ponytail that’s flapping back against him, made bearable only by the fact that it’s hitting the helmet and not his face. The clothes Mike is wearing are unmistakably a prisoner’s, and he wonders if anyone on the road will notice this as Len’s bike shoots past them in a blur. It’s possible that no one even knows he’s escaped yet. Did the guards radio the station about their flat tire? They talked about it, but he can’t remember them actually doing it.

The bike begins to slow as they move away from the State Park area and out into farmland. When they pull off the road they’re in the middle of nowhere again, headed toward what looks at first glance like a random warehouse in the middle of a field. As they get closer, Mike sees that it’s actually an isolated little airport hangar. There’s a dirt runway, too. 

Len parks near the hangar and turns off the bike. Mike has some trouble getting his arms to unclench, sore already from how tightly he was holding on for dear life. He’s shaking all over and still short of breath from an overload of bewildered adrenaline. Len stands and takes off his helmet, hangs it on the steering bar and pulls his hair out of his ponytail, giving it a dramatic toss. 

“Okay there, champ?” he asks when Mike has managed to pull his helmet off, still slumped against the parked bike and not sure his legs are working well enough to support him. 

“I’m gonna puke,” Mike says, but then he just swallows heavily and lets the helmet fumble clownishly out of his hands, which won’t stop shaking. “What is this? Who are you?”

“I’m just a hired gun. C’mon.” He gives Mike a hand and helps him stand up. “I’ll tell you more once we’re in the air.”

Mike follows Len into the hangar, looking back over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching them from the country road that runs alongside it. There’s nobody in sight, and nothing around for miles but farmland and sky. Mike wants to ask a thousand questions, but he obediently keeps silent and watches Len use some kind of wireless handheld key to make the stairway on the sleek private plane inside the hangar pop open and descend for them. 

“After you,” Len says, gesturing.

Mike figures there’s no point in asking more questions that won’t be answered, and he’d rather sleepwalk through this insanity than be back in that transport van with his wrists cuffed together, so he’s not going to fight this turn of events just yet. He boards the plane, holding onto both rails on the staircase to keep from falling over in trembling shock. 

“Jesus christ,” he says when he’s inside. The plane is as luxurious as it looked from the outside, wood-paneled and lined with sumptuous seating options, a little bed neatly made near the back. There’s a small bar, a giant television, and nobody else on board. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” Len says. “Those are for you.” He points to a stack of folded clothes on the bed. “But you might want to wait until we’re in the air, ‘cause then you can take a shower. Bathroom’s in back.” He points again. “And there’s a seatbelt on that seat over there if you’d like to be strapped in during takeoff, but it shouldn’t be necessary.” 

“What _is_ this?” Mike says, unable to keep from asking or from nearly shouting this question in disbelief. 

“Wait till I’ve got this baby on autopilot and I’ll tell you all about it,” Len says, and he winks before turning and heading into the open cockpit. 

Mike needs to sit down. He falls onto the nearest plush bench seat and puts his hands on his knees, trying to breathe normally. It’s beginning to dawn on him that whatever is happening might be a good thing. He is no longer in the prison van, no longer wearing handcuffs. He’s free, for now, conditional to whatever Len plans to do to him. Whatever Len’s plotting, if law enforcement gets its hands on him again he’s never gonna see the outside of whatever max security nightmare they’ll toss him into. 

Len does something in the cockpit that causes the hangar’s giant door to begin opening, scrolling slowly upward to reveal the clear blue sky and the runway outside. Music comes on overhead, some kind of tingly synthwave stuff that sounded like it belongs in a movie.

“Let me know if you want me to change the music!” Len calls back. “I’ve got all kinds of stuff on this playlist.” He’s doing things in the cockpit, flipping on switches. Mike feels the plane hum to life around them. 

Mike’s eyes go to the bar, the shake in his hands less dramatic now but persisting. But no, this is no time to get wasted or even a little tipsy. He has to keep a clear head. God knows what the fuck is happening. Maybe he’s dreaming. He reaches under shirt, overcome with a wave of nauseating panic at the thought that his letter to Jay might have blown away when he was on the back of Len’s bike. But it’s still there, tucked safely into the waistband of Mike’s pants, and touching it makes him feel like he can breathe again for the first time since the van blew its tire. The presence of the letter also makes him sure this isn’t a dream, somehow. It’s all really happening, whatever it is.

The hum of the plane’s engine grows louder as Len drives it slowly forward, until they’ve fully emerged from the hangar and out into the sun. Len puts on a headset, presses the throttle forward, and suddenly they’re moving much faster, gaining speed as they head down the runway. 

Mike switches over to the chair with the seat belt and buckles himself in, just in case. There’s no telling if this fucker knows what he's doing. Although, to be fair, it really fucking seems like he does. 

And it’s true: they blast off smoothly at the end of the runway, soar over the scraggly old trees at the end of the field, and make a steady ascent into the sky.

Mike stares out the window near his seat, watching Wisconsin get further and further away below them. He unbuckles his seat belt and takes a deep breath, exhales. His rational mind is functioning again, mostly. His eyes burn when he formulates his first feeble theory about what might be going on here. But no-- No. That would be far too good to be true.

“Can we talk yet?” he asks, calling out to Len. 

“One sec,” Len calls back. “Or, more like ten minutes. We’ll be at cruising altitude then.” 

Mike gets up and paces around, trying not to let his mind return to his initial theory about where they might be going and why. He wishes he had a phone or a laptop, some way to access the internet so he could do some research and find out if Jay is all right. He tries to figure out how to turn on the massive TV and fails. If there’s a remote somewhere, he can’t find it.

“Okay!” Len says, turning from the cockpit to smile at Mike, the headset slung around his neck. “So, welcome. Sorry for the dramatics back there.” He doesn’t look sorry for them at all. He looks proud of himself. “All in a day’s work.”

“Who are you?” Mike asks. He walks over to take the seat closest to the cockpit, wondering if Len should be, like, watching the sky. 

“I’m Len,” he says, and he grins like this response was hilarious. “I’m a mercenary for hire. I specialize in martial arts and tactical logistics, with a little bit of dark magic mixed in when I need it.” 

“Magic.” Mike thinks of Xandu and shrugs. “Okay, what-- What are you doing this for? Are you, like, rescuing me? Or am I about to be sold as a sex slave?”

Len throws his head back and laughs. Mike tries not to take it as a comment on his appearance. Len is a pretty good-looking guy, though not Mike’s type. 

“This job is most definitely a rescue, my man,” Len says. “I was instructed to take good care of you.”

“Who hired you to do this?” Mike’s heart is slamming, hands shaking again.

“Dunno,” Len says. “It was all arranged anonymously. As long as I get the money, I’ll work for anyone. And this was not an inexpensive job, so the one thing I know about this client is that they’ve got money to spare. Beyond that, all I’ve got is the address where I’m supposed to bring you.”

“Which is where?” 

“A little island way out in the Pacific, a sort of lawless place without an official name. Pirate hideout, that sort of thing. I’ve got the lat long plugged into the plane’s nav system here.” He gestures with his thumb. “This baby’s amazing, basically flies itself.” 

“So the person who hired you owns this plane?” Mike asks, trying to eliminate the possibility that he can’t force himself to stop hoping for.

Len shakes his head. “This baby’s mine,” he says. “You need your own vehicles when you’re in my line of work, unregistered.”

Mike nods and tries to swallow, his throat tightening up. He stands unsteadily and goes to the bar, attempting to organize the rest of his questions in his mind, but all he can think about is the answer he doesn’t quite have, not yet, no matter how much he wants to believe he might be right. He pours himself some fancy-looking brandy and throws it back. 

“You can clean up, if you want,” Len says, which feels like another subtle dig at Mike’s appearance, though probably unintentional. There’s something almost eerily friendly about Len. He points to the door at the back of the plane. “Shower’s in there, and there’s stuff for shaving, too.” 

“There’s seriously a fucking shower on this thing?” Mike says, boggling. This didn’t quite register when Len mentioned it before.

“It’s not super spacious, but yep. It’ll do the trick.” 

Mike takes the stack of clothes from the bed and stumbles into the bathroom. He shuts the door behind him, glad to have a moment to himself to try to get his bearings. Splashing cold water on his face helps a little, and so does the slight buzz from the brandy he just gulped down on an empty stomach. The bathroom is small, but nowhere near as cramped as the standard issue ones on commercial planes, and the prospect of showering without a guard standing nearby sounds heavenly. He pulls off his prison uniform and carefully places the letter to Jay on the counter by the sink, unwilling to let himself imagine he could possibly hand it over soon. Though who the fuck else would hire a mercenary to break him out of prison? 

It’s both too good to be true, the idea that Jay could be waiting for him at the end of this plane ride, and also a Gift of the Magi nightmare from hell, because if Jay went through with getting fucked by the auction winner after having to spend all the money to save Mike from the colossal failure of Mike’s shitty attempt to save Jay from having to sell himself, Mike is going to die of wretched guilt right on the spot, as soon as they lay eyes on each other. 

He distracts himself from that potential forthcoming agony by attempting to figure out how the plane’s shower works, climbing into the stall and examining the controls. It’s clearly not using traditional plumbing, the the available buttons on the control panel aren’t particularly intuitive, but eventually he figures out how to make a weak stream of warm water come from the skinny showerhead, which is mounted high enough for a person even taller than him, presumably designed for Len. 

He doesn’t feel clean when he’s done scrubbing himself with fancy-smelling soap from head to foot and washing his hair with even fancier-smelling shampoo. Even giving himself a clean shave at the sink can’t wash away the sense that he’s filthy, and deeply unworthy of any of this. He can’t use any of the high end cleaning products in here to scrub away the dark mark on his soul, the one he earned by getting Jay into this in the first place and continuously making things worse in a way that’s maybe brought them here, to an ostensibly happy ending that will be marred forever by what Mike has done. 

He eyes the folded up love letter on the sink, feeling ashamed in its presence, as if the letter is some better version of himself that he didn’t live up to in reality. He tucks the letter into the front of his undershirt anyway, close to his heart. He’s become accustomed to keeping it there like a security blanket, needing to feel it against his skin at all times. The jeans and untucked button-up shirt both fit him perfectly, and even the undershirt and boxers are a little more stylish and carefully chosen than what he’d normally put on, which is another thing that makes him both hope and fear that Jay is behind all this.

Before leaving the bathroom he spends some time just staring at himself in the mirror, trying to imagine what Jay will see when he looks at him now. The man who ruined his life? His hapless best friend who needed rescuing because of his own misdeeds, as usual? He tells himself he shouldn’t even be so sure he’ll see Jay at all when he gets where they’re going, or ever again for that matter. God knows what’s gone on in the world since Mike has been behind bars. Anything could be happening. The fact that he’s currently on a private jet headed for some fucking pirate island instead of being booked into state prison is proof enough of that. 

“Do you have wi-fi on board?” he asks when he emerges from the bathroom, leaning in the doorway of the cockpit. 

“Nope,” Len says. “That would be a major security risk.”

“Oh. Sure.” Mike debates asking Len if he follows tabloid news, or whatever the fascination with Jay’s auction qualifies as, then decides he doesn’t want to spend the rest of the trip talking to this weirdo about his sad excuse for a love life. “Can I turn on that TV?” he asks. 

“Of course. It’s loaded with movies. Remote’s in the top left drawer on the bar.” 

“How long till we reach this island?”

“About twelve hours, give or take.” 

“Great,” Mike mutters. ‘Cause he won’t have gone out of his mind with nervous dread by then. He supposes he deserves it. No, fuck that-- He deserves much worse. “Am I gonna be able to cut it in this place?” he asks, picturing some Disneyfied pirate island with giant skull-shaped rocks and buried treasure chests. It’s probably not like that. “Like, among real criminals?”

“People there generally stay out of each other’s business,” Len says. “So as long as you’re good with that, I should think you’ll be okay.” 

“Did the person who hired you tell you what to do with me once we get there?”

“Just to bring you to a particular address, that’s all.” 

“What if it’s someone who wants me dead,” Mike says, shuffling in place and thinking of Rich Evans, plus a few other people he’s wronged in the past. “Would you intervene on my behalf? Or would you just be like, okay, go for it, kill him.”

“Hey, the customer’s always right.” Len turns to wink at Mike, who isn’t amused. “But I wouldn’t worry about that. This client told me to take good care of you, like I said. I was specifically instructed not to let you get hurt during the escape.”

“Maybe because they want to torture me to death themselves,” Mike says, now thinking of Jay. The thought shouldn’t be semi-erotic, but somehow it is. He needs another drink.

“Just relax, man,” Len says, beginning to sound slightly irritated by him. “You’re gonna be all right.”

Mike stretches out on the bed and watches movies while drinking beer, feeling miserably alone in both activities. At several points he dozes off, and he wakes up with a jerk from each of these brief, restless naps that feel more like little gut punches, because they feature a series of nightmares about prison, Jay hating him, and Rich being interviewed on the Ellen Show about Mike’s life story, the whole live audience laughing uproariously as Rich makes the details sound as pathetic as possible, pure evil twinkling in his eyes.

“Do you have food?” Mike asks when the sky outside has taken on a golden glow, the sun preparing to set over whatever part of the ocean they’re crossing now. 

“Just some protein bars,” Len says. “But if you want something better, we’re actually almost there. We’ll be landing in about twenty minutes.”

“Jesus.” Mike feels both like he’s been on this plane long enough to make its luxuriousness seem like an ironic, Twilight Zone-esque take on hell, and like he’s nowhere near ready to get off and face whatever happens next. “I guess I’ll wait,” Mike says when Len looks to him for his answer about the protein bars. 

“This place has killer seafood,” Len says, as if the pirate island is a restaurant in a resort town. “Hope you like fish.” 

“They’re fine, I guess.” 

Mike goes back to the chair with the seatbelt and peers out the window. There is an island in the distance, green and unremarkable-looking from this elevation. His stomach has started to twist up, partnering with his hunger pains to give him that good old certainty that he’ll be puking all over this fine upholstery and gleaming wood panelling any moment now.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” he calls to Len.

“Sure, but make it quick. I need to concentrate on landing in about thirty seconds.”

“Oh.” Mike isn’t sure this question can be answered in thirty seconds. Maybe it can’t be answered at all. “I’m not great at apologizing, uhh, and there’s someone who really deserves an apology from me. Like, on the grandest scale possible. And I’m not sure how to do that. What’s a good way to show contrition? Other than throwing yourself off a cliff.”

“Hmm.” Len says. He’s holding the headset, and Mike wonders if he shouldn’t have distracted him, because he looks like he’s taking the question seriously enough to delay their descent. “I think, depending on the person, it’s probably some combination of flowers, oral sex, and swearing an oath of undying fealty that’s sealed by blood magic. Which, if you’re interested-- I have a book you could borrow.”

Borrow? Mike wants to say. As if they’re going to see each other again?

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’d probably fuck up blood magic so bad that the world would end.”

Len laughs. “Yeah, that can happen. Okay, going into our final descent now. Prepare for landing in whichever way you so choose.”

Mike can feel it in his bones when the plane begins to lower toward the island, the pressure in his ears shifting with the change in elevation. He’s sweating a little, fidgeting in his seat. Compulsively, he reaches into his shirt to make sure the letter is still there. It is, waiting for fuck knows what.

Their landing is as smooth as the takeoff was, and now Mike has his face glued to the window, scanning the oncoming landscape for any hints of what exactly this place is going to be like. So far it looks banal, and they've landed on a dirt airstrip that’s similar to the one they took off from, only the trees surrounding this airfield are of the palm variety. Len pulls the plane into a hangar that resembles the one they departed from.

“You come here often?” Mike asks as Len is powering down the plane, safely parked inside the hanger. 

“I actually live here, when I’m not off doing a job,” Len says. “I have a hideout up in the northern mountains, with the neutral magic users and immortal ninja masters.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Maybe we’ll see each other around.” Len steps out of the cockpit and stretches his back in a way that seems show-offy to Mike. He’s getting a little tired of this guy and his continued claims of wizardry, though the fact that his plan worked and they’ve arrived here is probably proof that they’re all true. “Ready to head toward your final destination?” Len asks. 

And that doesn’t sound ominous at all.

“Sure,” Mike says, standing. “Why not.”

They leave the plane and climb into a sleek black car, some kind of SUV without branding or a license plate. All the windows are tinted. Mike slumps in the passenger seat with his nose pressed to the window, taking in the scenery while Len drives. The place isn’t sparkling with pirate waterfalls that tumble over skull-shaped rocks, or teeming with rowdy taverns featuring wenches who beckon from the windows. It looks kinda dumpy and poor, in fact. The few houses they pass on the dirt road from the hangar to wherever they’re headed are small, one story structures in need of paint, with beat-up old vehicles parked out front. 

“So, bank robbery, huh?” Len says when they’ve both been silent for a while, the sunset progressing more dramatically along the horizon over the water, which Mike can see in the distance from time to time as they drive along winding dirt and gravel roads lined with thick jungle.

“Bank robbery,” Mike repeats, deadpan. He doesn’t want to talk about it. “Turns out it’s not for me, Len.” 

“Any particular reason you were suddenly willing to give it a try? I did research on you for the job. No priors, and then suddenly at forty you want to rob a bank?”

“I fell in love with someone,” Mike says, because why not tell this guy his pathetic life story, as if they’re in Mike’s nightmare and Len is Ellen Degeneres. “And it got complicated.”

“Oh, man, say no more!”

Mike gladly complies. 

They reach a residential area where the homes are slightly more well kept, though still small. Len pulls up in front of a little green house on a cliff that overlooks the ocean, lights glowing warmly from its windows as the orange and pink in the sky deepens. There are houses on either side of the green one, and some across the way on the wide dirt road as well, a few with torches and lanterns glowing near their front doors. They must be on the western side of the island, because they have a view of the sun going down in the distance, out over the water. 

“This is the lat long,” Len says, consulting some handheld device that is not quite a phone, not quite an iPad. Mike just stares at the house, heart hammering. “I’m texting my client, saying we’re outside.”

“Uh-huh,” Mike says, feeling like his blood is draining out of him. He can smell his own sweat, but combined with the various grooming products he used on the plane it’s not too bad.

“Okay, great!” Len gives Mike a ridiculously cheerful smile. “My client says to head on inside. Just you, not me. So this is where we part ways. Good luck to you, friend.”

Len puts out his hand. Mike shakes it. He almost wants to ask Len to come in with him for moral support, or physical protection, though Mike can’t pay him anything for either. He's maybe never been this scared, not even when he was hiding from the cops after trying to rob a bank.

“Thanks for your help,” Mike says. His voice is already like, fucked.

“Don’t thank me,” Len says, nodding toward the house. “Thank the person who paid me eight hundred grand for this job.” 

Mike gets out of the car, supposing he’s about to do just that, in whatever inferior way he can come up with while also dying inside. Eight hundred grand? Eight hundred grand. Okay. Sure. That’s a number in fitting with his theory. Still, he tells himself to check his expectations as he crosses the house’s weedy front yard, his vision tunneling to the front door, which is painted white. Behind him, he hears Len turning the car around, then driving off in the direction they came from. Apparently he trusts that Mike won’t try to run away from whatever’s inside the house, not worried that once he’s gone Mike could go rogue and screw up Len’s successful Mike-delivery. Mike supposes Len just knows he has no place else to go. 

When Len is gone it’s just Mike standing there in front of the white door. Powerful, salt-scented wind from the ocean whips against him and makes the torches lit in the neighbor’s front yard _thwump_ menacingly as he stares at the doorknob, amazed by his own cowardice. He can hear the ocean, waves pounding against the cliff far below, and a jungle bird screaming from the thickly green mountains in the distance, which are darkening as the last of the sun disappears. 

Finally it’s Jay who opens the door, and when he does it occurs to Mike that Jay has always actually been the brave one, between the two of them.


	8. Chapter 8

Jay pulls Mike inside hastily, as if the cops might be looking for him even here, in pirate-magic world. 

“Oh my god,” Jay says when they’re standing in the house’s unadorned front foyer. Jay bolts the door shut and then leans back against it, peering up at Mike with wide-eyed wonder. “It worked.”

“Did you do blood magic?” Mike asks, voice already breaking.

Jay busts out laughing and throws his arms around Mike’s neck, hugging him hard. Mike scoops Jay up and squeezes him so close that Jay has to come onto his tiptoes, both of them clinging for dear life and trembling a little, Jay because he’s still laughing under his breath about Mike’s blood magic comment. Mike buries his face against Jay’s shoulder and breathes him in, holding back the urge to sob openly like the pitiful fuck he is. He can’t hold Jay tightly enough, even when he’s afraid the crushing intensity of this hug must be slightly painful. He can’t ever let Jay go again.

“Didn’t have to do blood magic,” Jay says, locked around Mike in the same bruising fashion, his lips brushing Mike’s neck when he speaks. Mike can feel Jay’s eyelashes, too, fluttering and delicate against his skin. “Just paid a shitload of money.” 

“Oh, god!” Mike pulls back, devastated, and holds Jay’s perfect little face in his hands. “I hate myself, Jay. I fucking hate this, I did this to you--”

“Hey, no, it’s all right.” Jay touches Mike’s face, too, cupping his cheeks and then petting them with his thumbs, as if he’s admiring the smooth quality of Mike’s shave. “I didn’t really need all that money, anyway, until I needed it to get you back.” 

“Jay! No, don’t-- You can’t forgive me! Not just like that, not yet! I--” Mike winces, moans. “Was it horrible,” he asks, keeping his eyes pinched shut as he asks this, as if he can hide from the answer. “Did they, were they-- You should hate me.” 

Jay swoons closer to Mike, pressing their stomachs together again. He smells amazing, like sunscreen and rum. Mike opens his eyes. Jay somehow looks like he’s never been happier.

“Was what horrible?” he asks.

“The--!! The auction, the, you--”

“Ohhhh, yeah.”

“Oh yeah?? What, like you could forget? Jesus, it’s all I can think about! Who won, what-- Happened, did they-- Were they evil?”

“No,” Jay says, laughing. “Well, maaaaybe, but she was nice to me.” 

“She???”

Jay laughs again and leans up onto his toes to bring his face close to Mike’s, stopping just short of a kiss. He’s warm under Mike’s hands, so perfect and solid and somehow real. Mike wants to fall at his feet and grovel, but Jay doesn’t even seem mad.

“You remember about five years back,” Jay says, petting Mike’s cheeks with his thumbs again, “We did that one house call that wasn’t Plinkett? The only house call we ever went on other than to Plinkett’s place, in fact?”

“No?” And what could this possibly have to do with the agony Mike is currently experiencing, needing to know that Jay’s first time wasn’t a horror show?

“You don’t remember that? The older lady who gave us twenty bucks to fix her VCR? You kept telling her it might be haunted by her dead husband?”

“I guess!” Mike pinches his eyes shut and shakes his head, some vague recollection of sitting in that lady’s ugly armchair coming back to him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“She won the auction! And not even to fuck me. She invested in a company after we fixed her VCR. Ever heard of BioTron?”

“No, Jay, you know I don’t follow the news.”

“Yeah, I’d never heard of it either, but apparently she was inspired to invest by some video she watched after we left, some sci-fi movie about genetic engineering, and the company was crazy successful. She became the CEO, and now she's like, well on her way to becoming a billionaire.”

Mike stares down at Jay, trying to find some hint on his face that he’s lying to spare Mike from feeling bad about whatever actually happened. But Jay is a terrible liar, and Mike can tell this is somehow the truth.

“So she’s been lusting after you since you fixed her VCR?” Mike says, trying to make sense of this. 

“I don’t think so,” Jay says. “I mean, like I said. We didn’t have sex, and it didn’t seem like she wanted to. She’s like an old grandma.” 

“Yeah, I know, but-- _What_? Why spend all that money on you if not for the sex?”

“I think she might be a little crazy, because she said she had to protect me. She basically won the auction just so no one else could. She said I’m gonna be a real valuable asset to her someday in the future.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I dunno. I met her in this posh hotel room in downtown Milwaukee, and I kept waiting for shit to get weird, you know, like this was her role play fantasy or something? But nope. She just bought me a beer from the mini bar and said to take care of myself, and you, because me and you are gonna be real important to her in the future somehow.”

“Me? What? How does she know me?”

“From when you fixed her VCR, I guess. So yeah, it was all pretty strange, but not the bad kind of strange. Money for nothing, basically. And kind of a miracle.”

“So this lady isn’t going to show up down the road someday and demand, like, your soul?”

“I mean, she could, but I wouldn’t give it to her. Like, that’s not in the contract we signed. It was a one hour engagement where she could do whatever sex shit she wanted to me, but she didn’t want anything like that, not even a hug. She said to just pretend like I’d had my virginity taken by the anonymous auction winner if anybody asked, and to forget the whole thing ever happened. Maybe she’s senile? Though I guess she’s also the CEO of this big BioTron company, so maybe not. All I know is I didn’t have to do any weird sex shit for her, or bend over for some other weirdo, thank fuck.”

“This is weird, Jay.” Mike wants to be relieved, but he’s still too scared to open the floodgates of glee just yet. He’s holding Jay’s shoulders, squeezing them, wanting to taste the rum he can smell on Jay’s breath.

“Sure is,” Jay says. “But it’s also good, I think? I mean, what do I care what some crazy old bat does with her money? She’s got more than she could ever spend. And Mike! You’re here.” Jay grins and presses himself more firmly against Mike, as if he’s getting off on the shape of Mike’s gut. “It worked, it really worked. I was so fucking worried something would go wrong. I’m, um. I’m a little drunk, had to calm my nerves with booze.” 

“Where the hell’d you find that Len guy?” Mike asks. He’s looking at Jay’s mouth and thinking again about the rum taste on his tongue, wondering if they shouldn’t just discuss all these details later. 

“Some guy named Jack came to my apartment on behalf of Rich,” Jay says. 

“Oh my god! Tall guy with glasses, bald?

“Yep, that’s him.”

“I know that fucker, he’s bad news!”

“I dunno about that, he seemed like a harmless dweeb to me. I guess Rich feels bad that you got caught? So he had Jack put me in touch with this Len dude who can supposedly break anyone out of any prison, for a price, and holy shit, he did it. You’re here!”

“Rich knows Len?” Mike says, recoiling. The idea of Rich participating in his rescue on any level annoys him, irrationally. 

“I guess,” Jay says. “What was he like? Len, I mean. We only talked over texts and email and he seemed, um. Eccentric.”

“He’s weird as fuck, but strangely likeable.”

“Yeah, that’s the impression I got. God, you’ll have to tell me all about it. Want a drink?”

“Hang on, just.” Mike shakes his head and moves his hands down to Jay’s waist, squeezing him there. “How’d you know Jack wasn’t just fucking with you? And that Len wouldn’t just steal your money and do nothing?”

“I didn’t,” Jay says. He shrugs. His hands are on Mike’s chest now, one pressed firmly over his wild heartbeat. Mike wonders if Jay can feel the shape of the letter under his shirt.

“You just took it on faith that someone you’d never met before was recommending a wizard ninja who would legitimately break me out of prison?” Mike says, unable to get past this.

“Not on faith, exactly. I had no idea what would happen. I just had to try something, anything. I mean, to be honest, um. I would have thrown the whole million into the wind if I thought it might mean I wouldn’t have to spend another day without you.”

“That’s fucking insane,” Mike says, because what has he ever done to deserve Jay, what even the fuck. 

“Says the guy who tried to rob a bank so he could buy my virginity!” 

“That wasn’t why!” Mike says, needing him to understand that he never would have expected anything for the money. He wants Jay on his own terms, with no obligations. “I was trying to protect you from everyone else, same as that old lady, and I didn’t want to cost you the million bucks in the meantime.”

“Oh.” The light in Jay’s eyes dims, and he loosens his grip on Mike, sinking down to plant his heels firmly on the ground. “So, you don’t. You don’t want--”

“Are you fucking kidding me??” 

Mike pulls Jay tight against him again, knowing this is his big moment, his opening for an extremely overdue love confession. He was too preoccupied with terror to prepare something worthy on the way here. Should he just hand Jay the letter? Should he paraphrase the high points? He’s got to do this right, and the semi-crushed look on Jay’s face is killing him in the meantime. Jay has to know exactly how he feels once and for all. 

“Jay,” Mike says, and he takes a deep breath.

“Mike?”

Now’s the time to lay everything out on the table and impress Jay with the eloquence of his pent-up feelings, but what comes out is:

“I wanna fuck you so bad it hurts,” in a shaky, begging voice that Mike barely recognizes as his own.

“Oh thank god,” Jay says, nodding rapidly, and then he’s surging up to give Mike a clumsy, open-mouthed kiss. It’s so clearly only the second kiss that Jay ever given anyone, and his sweet, shameless need of it cuts through Mike so hard and fast and good that his knees almost buckle. He steadies himself before reaching down to grab Jay’s legs and lift him off the floor entirely. Jay leaps into it like he was waiting for Mike to hoist him up, clamps his legs around Mike’s sides and tightens his arms around Mike’s neck, still kissing him. 

“I was afraid you didn’t like this,” Mike says, feeling smug already for the way Jay keeps pressing his tongue out to meet Mike’s, as if he’s been starving for it. 

“This?” Jay is muggy-eyed, clinging hard. 

“Kissing. You ran away, that morning.”

“Oh, I. Yeah. I don’t know. I liked it so much it freaked me the fuck out. I didn’t think-- I didn’t know it would be like that. Like that, uh. Good. And, just. After we kissed I thought I was gonna have to pick between you and a million dollars, and I knew I was gonna end up picking you, so I was fucking pissed off at you about it. That’s all.”

“Where’s the bed,” Mike asks, because he can’t take any more of these things Jay is saying without blubbering like an idiot, and he really needs to fuck Jay before he has a complete emotional breakdown, or the fucking won’t be the right kind. Also, Jay is heavier than he looks.

“There,” Jay says, pointing to the adjoining room. “I’ve got everything in there.” 

“Everything?”

Jay finally flushes, bites his lip and nods.

“For sex,” he says. “Condoms and all that stuff.”

“You know,” Mike says, carrying Jay toward the bed, which is really just a mattress on a box spring. The sheets look clean, at least. “I’ve never had sex without a condom.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do I look like somebody who had ladies lining up asking him to bareback them?”

“I mean, yes,” Jay says when Mike sets him on the bed. “To me, anyway. Who wants, um. That. From you.”

“You want that?” Mike says, crawling onto the bed and onto Jay, looming over him, very hard now.

“Mhm-hmm,” Jay says. He’s humping himself up against Mike’s gut in not-subtle little twitches of his hips. “If, if you do.”

“There’s not a single fucking thing I don’t want to do to you, Jay.”

Jay grins like this is the best news ever. Mike kisses him until they’re both breathless and grinding their dicks against each other like a couple of kids who won’t be able to get their pants open before they come. Mike grabs Jay’s hands and pins them to the bed, pressing hard against his wrists. He brings his mouth to Jay’s neck and starts working on sucking a bruise into his skin, then reconsiders his strategy.

“I should be gentle with you,” Mike says, lifting his face to check Jay’s eyes. Maybe he’s overwhelmed again. Kissing was enough to send him running, after all.

Jay huffs and shakes his head, his legs winding around Mike’s back.

“Please don’t be,” he says, and Mike remembers what Jay likes. Snake Plissken. Also him, Mike. Someone who’s never really been gentle with anything.

“You want it hard?” Mike asks, hoping this sounds seductive and not stupid. “Want me to just, like. Wreck you on my dick?”

“Yes,” Jay says, so emphatically that for a moment Mike thinks he’s joking, but he’s not: Jay’s pupils have gotten all fat and he’s nodding madly, the twitching of his hips less subtle now. “Please, please, yes. Do that.”

“How does an innocent little virgin like yourself even know that he wants that?” Mike asks, teasing.

“I don’t know if you realize this,” Jay says, some of the haziness clearing from his eyes, “But people can put stuff up their own asses.”

“Oh my god,” Mike says, and he bursts out laughing, not at the idea of Jay fucking himself on his fingers or whatever, which is extremely hot, just at that phrasing. Jay flexes against Mike's grip and curses him, but he’s laughing, too, the bed shaking with it. 

“It’s not that funny,” Jay says, still smiling, also blushing hard. “Jesus, stop!”

“Okay, no, sorry.” Mike tries to force himself to stop laughing, which only makes him lose it again, especially because Jay is laughing hard again, too, both of them a little insane with relief at this point. “It’s not, no, I get it,” Mike says, struggling to get the words out. “Just the way you said that, oh my god. It was so cute.”

“Cute?” Jay wrinkles his nose in objection to that word. 

“Uh-huh. And, jesus, I’ve thought about what you’re like when you jerk off, so much. How did I not think to include that?”

“Probably because you get off on the idea of me being a clueless virgin.”

“Only recently! Before I thought about you as, you know. Someone who beats off but also gets fucked. Ahem.”

“You were jerking off to me this whole time?” Jay flinches against Mike's grip on his wrists as if he wants to punch him. “What the fuck!”

“Not the whole time! Just the past, like. Year, or two. Or three.” 

“Mike.” Jay looks legitimately distressed for a moment. “You didn’t know? That you could have had me? This whole time, whenever you wanted?”

“No! How the fuck would I know that? You weren’t offering to suck my dick, so far as I remember.”

“I was afraid-- I thought you were straight!”

“I literally told you I probably wasn’t when you came out to me.” 

“You were drunk as fuck, I didn’t think you were serious! I thought you were just trying to make me feel better or something.”

Mike shrugs and concedes the point. He probably was trying to make Jay feel better, but it also turned out to be true.

“Yeah, so, we screwed that up,” he says. “Almost for good. But now-- Now I’m gonna give you this dick like I’ve been waiting eight years to do it, Jay. ‘Cause when you get right down to it, I have.” 

Jay takes a deep breath and exhales. Mike still has Jay’s hands pinned to the bed over his head, and there’s so much he wants to do, all at once, that he can’t decide where to start. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Jay says, soft and a little brokenly, and oh no. They can’t get into that emotional shit right now, not yet. 

“Ditto,” Mike says, and he sits up, releasing Jay’s wrists and leaning back to straddle him, enjoying how small Jay looks from this vantage point. “Take off your shirt.”

Jay licks his lips and nods before obeying, which is just-- Mike needs this to last, needs to not go off in his pants before he can even get Jay’s mouth or ass onto his dick, but god everything Jay does, every gesture, every nervous, hopeful little look he gives Mike, that blush still staining his cheeks-- It’s taking a lot of willpower for Mike to not just tear his pants open and jerk his cock until he comes all over Jay’s naked chest. 

Once his shirt is off, Jay flops down onto the mattress again and looks up at Mike for the next direction, his hands settling uncertainly over Mike’s knees.

And oh jesus this is going to be so good. Mike was too overwhelmed with everything else up till now, he almost forgot to take a moment to anticipate how fucking mind-blowing this is going to get before it’s done. And then they can do it again.

Mike moves slowly, both for the effect it will have on Jay and because his dick is throbbing just for the way Jay twitches and shivers when Mike’s hands slide up along his sides and over his ribs before settling on his tight little pecs. Mike brushes his thumb over Jay’s left nipple, which peaks under his touch and causes Jay to make a noise under his breath. He outright shudders when Mike does the same to his other nipple.

“Has anyone ever told you that you might be touch-starved,” Mike says, and he gives Jay’s nipples another feather-light touch, teasing him. Jay makes the same whimpery sound, and he arches into the touch this time, eyes falling shut.

“Someone might have mentioned that to me once,” Jay says when he blinks his eyes open again. “While he was practically humping my leg, ironically enough.”

Mike pinches Jay’s nipples as revenge for that comment. Jay’s breath hitches, and he grins up at Mike, seems to like that.

“God, I should have been doing this to you at work for years,” Mike says, giving him a wolfish answering grin. “Just fucking winding you up all day long and getting you all shaky and desperate.”

Jay whines and arches up against Mike’s hands again. When he swallows Mike can hear the wet click of it, and he watches Jay’s throat bob. Inspired, he leans in to lick from the hollow of Jay’s throat to his jawline. He does it again when Jay moans for him.

“Were you waiting for me,” Mike asks, mumbling this while his face is pressed to Jay’s throat, where he can feel Jay’s pulse pumping hard. Mike wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye while asking this.

“Yeah,” Jay says, barely audible. 

“I mean. Not just today--”

“I knew what you meant. Yes, yeah, okay? Fucking laugh at me for it if you want.” 

“What-- No.” Mike lifts his head and locks eyes with Jay, feeling fearless now. He sweeps Jay’s hair back with both his hands, messing it up. Jay looks newly vulnerable with his hair imperfect, and still a little angry, like he actually thinks Mike will make fun of him for saving his first time for Mike. “I’m not laughing,” Mike says. “Am I?”

Jay exhales sharply and tugs at Mike’s collar.

“Take this off,” he says, and Mike supposes Jay has earned the right to give him an order, so he obeys, tugging the shirt off overhead rather than taking his time with the buttons. 

His undershirt comes off with it, and Mike remembers the letter that was pressed to his chest only when it flutters down and lands against Jay’s.

“What’s this?” Jay asks, picking it up while Mike is still fighting his way out of sleeves of the outer shirt, the cuffs too narrow to make it over his hands.

“Don’t read that!” Mike says. Jay already has it unfolded.

“It says ‘Dear Jay’--”

“I know, but--!” Mike rips the shirt off at last and pitches it to the floor, turns back and snatches the letter from Jay. His face is on fire. Jay looks confused, a little hurt. “Later,” Mike says, folding the letter back up. He wants their first time to be all dirty talk and hot fucking, not the kind of tender, tearful reunion sex that would occur if Jay were to read this letter first. They can have that kind of sex later.

“What is it?” Jay asks when Mike puts the letter on the end table beside the bed. 

“Nothing. I wrote it in prison. It’s for you, but. Read it later, okay?”

“Um, okay?” 

Jay is frowning a little. Mike crawls onto him again and kisses the look of apprehension off his face, trying to promise with his tongue that everything’s okay. His face is still hot when Jay reaches up to pet his cheeks. Mike avoids Jay’s eyes when he breaks the kiss. He leans in to suck at Jay’s neck again before moving lower and returning his attention to Jay’s apparently oversensitive nipples, flicking one with just the tip of his tongue, then the other. Jay makes a half-swallowed noise of startled pleasure, causing Mike’s dick to leak even more profusely into the front of his boxers, and Mike decides the time for pants is over. Still licking too softly at Jay’s right nipple, he reaches down to find the button on Jay’s jeans and pops it open. 

“Yeah,” Jay says, as if Mike doesn’t know exactly where Jay wants his hand right now. Jay’s erection is straining against the front of his jeans, and it’s got to be chafing a little at this point, because he’s taken every chance he’s got to grind it against Mike’s stomach.

Mike sits back to watch as he pulls open the front of Jay’s jeans, wanting to see this. Christ, he’s thought so much about what Jay’s dick looks like. He’s almost afraid to see it for real, not because it’s about to be the first dick he’s ever had in his mouth but because his expectations are so high.

Jay is up on his elbows, watching this as well. His chest is heaving, nipples hard. He lets his head drop back when Mike pulls his sticky underwear down and tugs out his cock, which is of course perfect, not small but somehow _cute_ , especially in the sense that he’s soaked himself with precome. Mike makes an appreciative little sound under his breath as he wraps his hand around it. Jay drops onto his back and groans from someplace deep in his chest, his hips stuttering upward in needy little thrusts already.

“So what’d you imagine me doing,” Mike asks when he’s pumping Jay’s cock, slow enough so that there’s no threat he’ll come too soon. “When you thought of me?”

Jay is all red-faced and panting and Mike thinks he’ll probably need to hear the question at least two more times to really comprehend it, but then he locks his foggy gaze on Mike’s, licks his lips and says:

“Just, like, you nailing me over every available surface, usually. Wherever we were.”

“Wherever we _were_? So this wasn’t only happening in bed at night? You were thinking about it, like. At the bar, at work--”

“Fuck off,” Jay says, but he’s grinning, trying to hump Mike’s hand. He whines a little when Mike holds his hips down with one hand to keep control of the pace, his other hand still sliding slowly up and down the shaft of Jay’s cock, spreading precome. “What, ah, what’d you think about-- Me?” Jay asks, when he can almost get his voice steady.

“Oh, jesus. What didn’t I think about.”

“You fucker,” Jay says, smirking at him, and he looks so stupidly in love that Mike almost tears up. “Tell me.”

Mike rubs his thumb in lazy circles around the head of Jay’s cock, a kind of halfway punishment for that impertinent demand. Jay’s mouth falls open and he tries harder to fuck Mike’s hand, foiled again by the grip Mike has on his hip, which will hopefully leave a pretty bruise that Mike can tease his tongue over later.

“Hmm, what did I think about _most_ ,” Mike says. “Probably teaching you how to suck cock. How you’d choke on it a little. ‘Cause, I mean, not to brag, but mine’s pretty fucking big.” 

“ _Ah_ , oh-- god, Mike, I’m gonna come--”

“What, already? No way.” Mike takes his hand away and Jay sort of sobs, shoulders going tense. Once his hips are freed he thrusts his dick up against nothing. His hands are closed into fists around the bedsheets, like he knows he’s not supposed to touch himself, that he has to wait for Mike. He’s had plenty of practice in doing just that, and he takes a deep, shuddery breath, going as still as he can and looking to Mike expectantly, waiting to see what will happen next.

“So teach me,” Jay says, watching Mike take off his pants. 

“Okay,” Mike says, standing near the bed as he slides them down, sticky boxer shorts going with them because why not, they’re all the way the fuck in now. “Come here,” he says, taking a step backward when he’s free of his pants. “On your knees.” 

Jay shoves his pants and underwear off in the process of assuming this position, and Mike debates chastising him for doing so without permission, then decides that would be too harsh. He likes the idea that with Jay he can walk the precise line between his sadistic tormenter and the person who loves him more than anything, enough to help him get off exactly the way he’s always dreamed about, exactly like this.

“You lost some weight?” Jay says when he’s on his knees in front of Mike, staring at his cock.

“What, in the dick region? I don’t think so.”

“No, ah--” Jay looks up at Mike and gives him a petulant nose twitch when he sees Mike smirking down at him, enjoying the fact that he caught Jay staring at his dick, as if it’s not pointed right at Jay’s face. “I mean-- Never mind.”

“I’ve been in jail, Jay. There was no beer. Hence some water weight loss.”

“Oh.” Jay swallows and reaches out as if to grip Mike’s legs, then brings his hands back to his sides, waiting to be told that he can. “Is it weird that I fuh--fucking find that hot right now? That you were in prison?”

“Yes-- No. It’s perfect, actually. Hey, we can role play that sometime. Me in jail for aggravated assault and armed robbery, and your twinky ass locked up for tax evasion. You could be my little prison boyfriend.”

“Hmm.” Jay looks annoyed, maybe because he wants Mike to ask him to be his real life boyfriend. Later, later. He refocuses on Mike’s dick and his eyes widen with some other emotion entirely, or maybe it’s more primal than that, just wet-mouthed hunger. “Fuck, that’s really big,” he says, muttering this as if it’s involuntary.

Mike has to take a moment to get his brain back online, because this is obviously the glorious pinnacle of his entire fucking life: Jay naked and on his knees, waiting to be told how to suck his cock and remarking on its hugeness in the meantime.

“Yep,” Mike says, his voice still a little pinched with gratitude, disbelief, and the effort not to just grab his dick and unload all over Jay’s upturned face. No, this needs to last until they’re both out of their minds with the need to come. He’s decided it. “Okay, so. You may begin.”

“Begin?” Jay smirks up at him.

Mike narrows his eyes and steps forward, bumping his sticky cockhead against Jay’s lips. 

“Just freestyle it at first,” Mike says. “I’ll give you feedback.”

Jay swallows a laugh that leaps into in his eyes before he tampers it down. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and is looking up at Mike, right into his eyes, when he takes a first tiny lick, rubbing the tip of his tongue over the leaking slit of Mike’s dick. He doesn’t break eye contact or even blink as he does it again, again. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Mike says, suddenly certain that his plan to last until he’s pounding into Jay’s ass is going to be pretty much impossible. 

“Good?” Jay says, batting his eyelashes and barely suppressing a smirk that Mike sees in his eyes anyway. 

“Smart ass,” Mike says, cupping Jay’s cheek in one hand and bringing him closer again, hoping that Jay won’t feel the slight shake in his fingers. 

Jay closes his eyes and obediently opens his mouth around Mike’s cockhead when it brushes against his lips. His mouth is hot and soft and fuck fuck fuck those eyelashes against his cheeks are a whole other thing, Mike has never had a blow job that felt like a spiritual experience, like a gift from some celestial otherworld. He pulls free just so he won’t come, and moans when Jay tries to follow his dick with his mouth, only sitting back onto his knees again when Mike stops him by opening his hand on top of Jay’s head and keeping him in place. 

Jay looks up at Mike and licks his lips, waiting, fuck, he’s just so good at _waiting_ , and Mike’s first instinct is to pity him for it at least, but it’s almost like Jay is winning, being so good at patience.

Not that this is a competition or anything.

Mike takes a deep breath and wipes at his face with the hand that’s not on Jay’s head. He’s sweating a little. It’s warm in here. He’s barely even looked at the room yet, and he does so now, using the opportunity to both take in his surroundings at last and to keep from coming. There’s the bed, king-sized with off-white sheets and two pillows. The pillows tug at Mike’s heart a little, because did Jay buy two pillows for their safehouse, one for each of them, or were those just here when arrived, part of the fully-furnished pirate island home experience? The walls are bare and there’s hardly any other furniture, just the end table by the bed and a single dresser against the far wall, a beat-up old thing that looks secondhand. There are three windows, one behind the bed and two on the back wall that faces the ocean, all of them currently covered by heavy curtains. 

“Are you okay?” Jay asks, voice soft, and he’s not being cheeky this time, he’s really asking, nothing but sweetness and concern in his eyes when Mike looks down at him again.

“Mhmm-hmm.” Mike cups Jay’s face again and just strokes his cheek for a while before shuffling forward again, groaning with profound relief when Jay takes him back into his mouth. 

Mike lets himself twitch his hips just a little when Jay has worked up enough nerve to try to fit more of Mike’s cock into his mouth, still not getting very much of the length, his lips stretched wide around the width. His mouth is soaking wet, drooling for this as his tongue busily flicks and sucks at Mike’s cockhead every time he pulls back, his chin getting all wet. Just this beginner’s effort is enough to send a shake up the back of Mike’s thighs, threatening to turn into a climax. He eases Jay off and tries to catch his breath, not wanting Jay to know how close he feels already. 

“Good,” Mike says, stroking his fingers through Jay’s fucked-up hair, further fucking it up. “That was, yeah. Good, felt good.”

“I could keep going,” Jay says, and he’s fucking _begging_ to with his eyes, jesus _fuck_. 

Mike has to swallow something that might have come out as a whimper. He shakes his head. 

“Get back on the bed,” he says, pointing. “It’s my turn.”

Jay is a little wobbly on his feet when he stands, and he walks backward toward the bed, keeping his eyes on Mike’s as if Mike has hypnotized him. When his legs hit the edge of the mattress he drops onto it blindly, his wet cock bouncing between his thighs as he spreads them for Mike, letting him stare. Jay bites his lip, face blazing, and puts his hands behind him on the bed, flattening them against the sheets. 

“You’re perfect,” Mike says, though it doesn’t suit the script he wants to stick to. It just fell out of him like a confession. 

“That’s not true,” Jay says. He smiles and sort of flexes in Mike’s direction without letting himself actually get up or move closer. He’s begging again, with his whole body now, like: _come here, please, come here, don’t be so far away_.

Mike indulges in a few seconds of grieving for the fact that they could have been doing this all along, for years, but he dismisses this as he crosses the space between them, because if had happened differently, earlier, it wouldn’t have been perfect, and this is fucking perfect, is what he meant to say.

He falls onto Jay with what he hopes is Snake Plissken-like urgency, knocking him onto his back and kissing him hard, resisting the screaming urge to grind his cock against Jay’s. If he did that it would be all be over, his load blown, so he hovers just short of pressing against Jay’s while they kiss. He never thought he’d like anything more than the taste of a S’Mores Pop Tart and toothpaste on Jay’s tongue, but this is better, because Jay tastes like rum and Mike’s precome, Mike’s cock. 

“I’m gonna suck your dick,” Mike says when his face is hovering over Jay’s. He pulls back a little further when Jay tries to chase their broken kiss. “Don’t come in my mouth, okay?”

“Oh-- Okay--”

“I’m not opposed to it, like, in principle. I will definitely swallow your come sometime in the very near future. I’ll swallow the fuck out of it, Jay. But for tonight, this first time, I don’t want you to come until you’re pushed open on my dick. Understand?”

Jay makes a punched little noise and nods, gripping the bed sheets so hard that his knuckles are white. 

“Mike,” he says, voice pinched, and it sounds like part love confession, part begging for mercy.

“Remember,” Mike says, and he gives a Jay a little kiss on the tip of his nose, then on his lips. “Don’t come, not yet.”

He moves downward, pressing more prim, closed-mouth kisses to Jay’s skin on the way. He kisses Jay’s collarbone, nipples, trails kisses over his side, then moves to his trembling stomach, where he also gives Jay a few sharp licks. 

Jay is trying not to make noise and losing the battle. It’s adorable, fucking hot. Mike is going to die if he can’t be inside Jay soon, but he doesn’t want to rush this. He moves lower and pushes Jay’s thighs open wider, kneeling on the bed between them. Jay cries out when Mike kisses him hotly on the inside of his shaking left thigh, then in roughly the same spot on the right one.

“Muh-- Mike,” Jay says. 

“Hmm?” Mike keeps kissing the high inside of Jay’s thigh, sucking the hot, smooth skin there into his mouth. 

“ _Ah_ \--” is all Jay says in response, and then, so softly: “Please--”

“Shhh, I’m getting there.” And now who’s the best at patience? Ha!

In truth, Mike is dying to get his mouth around Jay’s rock hard dick, half sure that Jay is going to come as soon as Mike licks him and then sob out apologies for disobeying Mike’s orders. Maybe Mike will spank him or something, holy shit. There’s so much they can try together now, finally. Mike is almost misty-eyed about it as he brings his tongue to the sticky underside of Jay’s dick at last. 

Jay makes that sob sound again when Mike licks him gently, probably too gently to set him off, even as wound up as he is. Jay has both fists pressed over his mouth and he’s moaning broken half-words against them, many of which sound like attempts at Mike’s name. Mike wasn’t sure he’d like the taste of dick or come, despite all his fantasies about them, but Jay tastes fucking good, even here, maybe especially here, and he has to school himself to keep licking Jay in only teasing little swipes, wanting to just flatten his tongue and devour him. 

“Oh--!” Jay says, sitting up on his elbows when Mike finally takes him wholly into his mouth, drooling for how well Jay fits there: he’s the perfect size, just right. “I-- I can’t--” Jay puts his palm on Mike’s forehead. He’s shaking hard now, thighs closing around Mike’s head. “Mike, puh--- Please, I’ll come, _ahh_ , fuck, it’s too-- Nnnh, please--”

Mike pulls off reluctantly, tempted to just let Jay come down his throat now and then spank him for it to make up for the change in plans, but maybe spanking is too hardcore for a virgin’s first time. More than that, he doesn’t want to lose the state that Jay is currently in, which is near-brainless with the need to come and yet so determined to do what Mike asked him to that he seems legitimately relieved when Mike stops sucking his dick and swoons in to kiss him instead. 

“Good, Jay,” Mike says, petting Jay’s sides until he’s shaking a little less violently. “That was good, you did really well.” 

Jay gives Mike a dopey little smile, just at the corner of his lips, and searches Mike’s eyes like he’s looking for his next command there. Mike would gladly spend the rest of his life doing nothing but telling Jay how good he is for following Mike’s orders. He’d also happily spend the rest of his life getting nothing but eye rolls from Jay, if the alternative was a hellish Jay-less existence, but this is just so fucking ideal that he can’t believe it’s happening to him, to them.

“Uh, do you have lube?” Mike asks, regretting that he’s too close to wrecked himself to put it more elegantly.

“Yeah,” Jay says, pointing to the end table by the bed, which has a single drawer. “In there.”

Mike walks across the bed on his knees and roots around in the drawer. He grins when he sees Jay bought Magnum condoms. Ah, so he knew. He’s probably in love with Mike half because he can tell by Mike’s stride that he’s got a huge dick. Mike is okay with that.

“Pineapple-flavored?” Mike says, smirking and holding up one of three bottles of lube in the drawer. The fact that Jay brought not one but three is too touching, too cute. Mike can’t even make fun of him for it, though the opportunity is ripe.

“I got a variety,” Jay says, shrugging one shoulder. He’s lying back on one of the pillows, nervous hands twitching on his stomach, knees bent. 

“You look like you’re getting ready for a gyno exam,” Mike says, though that’s not strictly true, because Jay’s dick is still so, so hard, red and leaking steadily onto his belly. 

“Fuck you,” Jay says, but he also laughs. “I don’t know how to do this part. You have to show me.”

“The, uh--” Mike goes brainless for a moment for how much he likes that idea. “I thought you said you’d put stuff up there?” He glances down in the direction of Jay’s ass, to make himself clear.

“Oh my god.” And there’s an eye roll, but it’s precious to Mike in this moment, perfect. “Yes, I have-- I meant about my posture while I like, wait for you to mount me. You can’t tell me I’m doing it wrong! I have no idea what I’m supposed to look like right now.”

Mike makes a whimpering sound that hits him too hard, impossible to contain, and he knee-walks across the bed with the lube, dropping it near Jay’s shoulder before swooping down to kiss him, because, shit. What he’s supposed to look like? He couldn’t possibly look better. Nobody could, to Mike, right now.

“Jesus,” Jay says, laughing against Mike’s mouth. He’s blushing like he knows what Mike is thinking, and why Mike is kissing him like he’s irreplaceable and doing everything right, because Jay can’t do anything wrong in Mike’s eyes right now, or ever, not really. Mike hopes he knows, anyway. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Mike says, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you what to do, yeah. That’s what you want?”

Jay’s pupils get fat and he nods, swallows. 

“Yes,” he says, as if Mike didn’t hear that answer in the way Jay is looking at him, like he’s never wanted anything more.

Mike almost lets loose the gushing stream of _I love you and I’m yours forever, haha you can do whatever you want to me too by the way, I’m basically your fucking slave_ , and so forth. It’s all going to come tumbling out of him eventually, but he manages to hold it back by kissing Jay instead. They’ll get to that other stuff later. They need to do this first. Jay needs this, first. He’s been waiting so long. Mike owes him a perfect first time, not some blubbering sob-fest that becomes all about Mike’s feelings.

“Let me try,” Jay says when Mike struggles with the plastic wrapping around the lube’s cap. 

“I got it.” Mike evades Jay’s attempts to take over, feeling he should do this himself. He realizes as he picks ineffectively at the plastic that he can hear the ocean even through the closed windows: faint, rhythmic thumps from the waves crashing at the bottom of the cliff. “Thin walls,” he says, mumbling this to himself and gritting his teeth as the plastic continues to foil him. “You meet the neighbors yet?”

“Uh, no, Mike. I got here yesterday.”

“How? Goddamn this thing!” he roars before Jay can answer.

“Let me!” Jay sits up and snatches the lube from him. “One of Len’s associates flew me here,” he says. “This woman. She didn’t say much. I think she might be Len’s wife, or girlfriend or something.”

It annoys Mike when Jay is able to peel away the plastic easily. Whatever, he has smaller fingers. Jay hands the opened bottle to Mike and tosses the plastic onto the floor, looking proud of himself. Mike decides to demonstrate just what these clumsy fingers can do.

“Lay back,” Mike says, popping the cap off the lube. 

“I won’t be able to last if you use your fingers,” Jay says, bashful again with his head on the pillow. 

“Why not? You particularly like being fingered?”

Jay shrugs and flushes, bites his lip. 

“I’ve only ever done it to myself,” he says, mumbling. “But. Yes.”

“Just relax. I’ll keep you under control.” 

Mike remembers someone saying this, about Jay being under his control or not-- Rich? Oh god, he doesn’t want to think about Rich right now. He puts the lube aside before squirting any out and tucks himself against Jay’s side, pulling Jay’s leg up against his chest so he can reach his target. Jay leans into the embrace, resting his head on Mike’s shoulder and giving him a look that can only be described as adoring. So he likes this, already. Mike spends some time stroking the inside of Jay’s thigh with his thumb, which gets Jay all shivery and breathing faster even before Mike moves his hand lower.

“Ah--” Jay turns his face against Mike’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering shut at the first ghosting brush of Mike’s finger over his hole. Mike will get down between his legs eventually, for this and other matters, but he likes the idea of starting like this, even though he said he wouldn’t be gentle. This isn’t gentleness so much as teasing Jay to the point of near insanity before letting him come. Which is a plan Mike is really excited about, presently.

“Fuck, are you sure you’ve had things in here?” Mike says, because Jay feels so fucking tight, absolutely no give when Mike presses and then rubs with the pad of his finger. 

“Nngh,” Jay says, flexing in Mike’s grip. He’s already trying to push down against Mike’s touch, to get more of it. “I-- Yeah. Mike.”

“Yes?”

Jay moans in answer, grabbing a handful of bedsheets with his free hand. His other hand is wrapped around Mike’s bicep, his fingers tightening there every time Mike gives him a tiny, incremental increase in pressure, rubbing him in slow circles now. 

“You think my dick will even fit in here?” Mike asks. It’s a sincere question, maybe.

Jay exhales. “Yes,” he says. He peeks up at Mike, licks his lips. “It will.” 

“You’re sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How?”

“I-- _ahh_ , yeah. I don’t know. Just trust me.” 

Mike considers interviewing Jay about his collection of silicone dicks, because he’s pretty sure it exists, but maybe now’s not the time. The sad little noise Jay makes when Mike takes his hand away to get the lube pulls several fat beads of precome from Mike’s cock, drooling out onto the sheets.

“Hold tight,” Mike says, coating his fingers. “Heh. No pun intended.”

“Oh my god.” Jay smirks when Mike looks at him. He doesn’t look nervous, only needy and turned on, and trusting, actually, which makes Mike lean in for a kiss.

“How do you feel about puns during sex?” Mike asks, stalling. Maybe he’s the nervous one.

“Same way I feel about them in every other situation,” Jay says.

“Which is what?”

“Deeply embarrassed.”

Mike laughs wetly and bites at Jay’s bottom lip. Jay whines a little and presses closer to him. He seems to like being bitten and pinched. Interesting.

Mike repositions himself at Jay’s side, moving down to rest his chin over the point of Jay’s hipbone. Jay watches him, open-mouthed, eyes swimming. He spreads his thighs a little wider when Mike reaches between them. Mike is wondering now why he thought, subconsciously perhaps, that any of this would be difficult, on any level. It’s the easiest thing in the world so far, to the extent that he feels like he was probably slowly dying from not having it, without knowing, before. 

“Does it feel different?” Mike asks when he’s only got his fingertip in, because jesus christ Jay is really tight. 

“Wha-- What?”

“I mean, someone else doing it, me doing it.” 

Jay snorts, for a moment looking like he’s got his brain back. “Uh, yeah, Mike. Does it feel different when someone who isn’t you touches your dick-- _Ahhh_ \--!!”

Mike can feel how sharkish his grin must look when he’s got his lubed-up finger suddenly pushed all the way into Jay, who seems to be really fucking into it, back arching and hips twisting like he wants to fuck himself on Mike’s finger but isn’t sure if he’s allowed to or if he can even handle it yet.

“I was just thinking,” Mike says, giving Jay a smug look when he blinks his eyes open again, lids heavy. “About, you know, you doing this. To yourself. A lot, I presume?”

“Fuh,” Jay manages to say, then he just moans, lifts his hips and presses them back down, too far gone already not to just go for it. Greedy little fucker. Mike kisses his hip before holding him still. 

“You like that?” Mike asks, just to make sure.

“Hnn, yes, please--”

“Please what?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know--” Jay throws his head back and bucks his hips hard enough to fight free from Mike’s grip, moaning when he manages to slide himself up and then down onto Mike’s finger in the process.

“Damn, you do like that.” 

“Told you, I told you, ah, I’ll come--”

“No, you won’t. Hold still.”

Mike is barely better off, watching Jay fall apart for this. If he rolled onto his side and humped the mattress a few times while finger-fucking Jay, it would all be over. He’s so ready to unload that he feels like he’d quite literally flood the bed if he came now, ruining not just the sheets but the mattress. He’s got to come in Jay’s ass, which will somehow contain all of it, so he keeps his dick clear of any contact with the bed or Jay’s writhing body, and doesn’t so much as breathe onto Jay’s, which is still dribbling precome onto his belly. 

“This is all it takes, huh?” Mike says, dragging his finger out slow. He watches Jay’s face when he pushes it back in, sees him suffering with his pleasure, jaw tight and shoulders tense against his effort not to get too close to his edge. 

“It’s, it’s--” Jay says, and then he just whines and tries to move his hips again. Mike holds him still.

“You’re so, like, sensitive or something,” Mike says, marveling. “What a waste, that you didn’t have someone taking care of you this whole time.”

Jay cracks his eyes open and gives Mike a look. Maybe that was a little too heavy for this moment when Mike is fucking Jay’s ass open with his finger at an agonizingly slow pace. Jay opens his mouth, surely to make some snarky comment, but then Mike grazes what must be his prostate, because Jay loses whatever he was going to say in a guttural, almost panicked sound that rips from him as his back bows dramatically, his ass clenching up tight around Mike’s finger as if in approval. 

“Holy shit,” Mike says, and he touches Jay there again.

“Don’t--!” Jay grabs his dick and squeezes hard at the base, his chest jittering like he’s going to sob. 

“Okay, okay,” Mike says, understanding. That was a close call. Jay is still holding his dick, still all tense, breathing through his nose in huffs while he tries not to come. “I think I’d better just, um, put my dick in there now,” Mike says gracelessly, because he can’t wait any longer and because the initial discomfort of doing so will postpone Jay’s orgasm for a little longer. They’re both holding their breath as Mike slowly pulls his finger free, and Jay is trembling all over by the time it pops out, trying so hard not to come that Mike almost wants to tell him to just go ahead. “Do you really want me in there raw?” he asks instead, tapping Jay’s knee to get his attention. 

Jay expels a choppy breath and grabs Mike’s arms. He pulls Mike over next to him, careful not to brush his dick against any part of Mike in the process, his eyes all watery and serious when he nods.

“You don’t have any, like, STDs, right?” Jay says when he can talk again. 

“Nah, nothing.” A failed insurance claim scam that Mike tried to pull last year required submitting to a blood test, which confirmed this. “I haven’t even gotten laid, uh, all that much. In recent years.”

Jay smiles, managing to look mischievous even while blinking back tears from the strain of how much he needs to come. 

“Were you were waiting for me?” he asks.

It’s supposed to be a joke, maybe, but Mike nods and kisses him, sighing into his mouth, because: yeah. Turns out he was. 

When he lubes up his dick he realizes he’s the one in trouble now, because he’s never been in someone without a condom, and while Jay will have the effort of taking Mike in to distract him, Mike will be out on a ledge with nothing but Jay’s incredibly tight ass squeezing around him while Jay’s overwhelmed little noises tug him ever closer and oh god he’s going to come as soon as he’s half in.

Trying not to be a defeatist, he lines himself up. Jay lifts his shaky legs up against Mike’s sides, clearly wanting to wrap them around him for traction. They lock eyes, and they both groan when Mike bumps into place, slipping around against the too-tiny entrance to Jay’s body because he used too much lube.

“Any last words?” Mike asks.

Jay gives him a disbelieving look, then presses his lips together, trying not to laugh. 

“Did you really just say that?” he asks. 

“Yeah, and you seemed to like it. You’re laughing!” 

Jay shakes his head, but he totally is laughing, mostly in his eyes, his shoulders bouncing a little and the corners of his mouth twitching upward as he struggles to hold it in. Mike pets Jay’s sides, wanting to give a whole speech about how much it means to him that he can always, always make Jay laugh, but there’s no time for that now, though he does feel like it’s related to how much he’s enjoying watching Jay try not to come for him. The trying not to laugh Jay laughs are the best ones.

“So, I’m gonna go ahead and, uh--” Mike starts to say, but he doesn’t finish, because Jay is holding onto his arms tightly and begging with his eyes: please, yes, now.

The first push still feels kinda mean or something, and Mike winces regretfully, unable to appreciate the sweet friction on his dick because goddamn that must hurt. Jay makes a squeaky, pained little noise and pinches his eyes shut, his nails digging into Mike’s forearms as Mike pushes in a little deeper, deeper, starting to get dizzy from the sense that he’s falling out of his own body as he sinks into Jay’s, losing the ability to connect to his own brain properly. Because ohhhh fuck, now he feels it, sliding past the initial shock that this is happening at all: and it’s good, so fucking good, too good to allow him to inhabit a corporeal form properly. He’s dissolving into something else, diffusing into pure singing pleasure, and he’s okay with it, goodbye to the world. 

He makes himself shake out of it a little, halfway in, and cups Jay’s face in his hands, waiting for Jay to open his eyes and tell him he’s okay. He’s not supposed to be gentle, but he can’t just go full Snake Plissken and ram Jay into the mattress right away. 

“Keep going,” Jay says, eyes still closed, brow still pinched, and his voice is all choked up, too. 

“Are you--”

“Yes, you fucker, don’t question me right now!” 

Mike suppresses an inappropriate, giddy laugh and supposes Jay is right: he is the expert on his own ass and what it can take. Mike is the beginner here, in that sense.

He pushes the rest of the way in maybe a little faster than he should have, because Jay gasps and curses in what sounds like some demonic language that’s only half-English, holding onto Mike’s arms in a way that will doubtless leave little finger-sized bruises. Mike doesn’t care, is glad, and can’t imagine thinking anything that Jay does is anything less than perfect ever again, because he’s balls deep in Jay now and he wants to live here forever, might cry after all for how good it feels to be buried in him at last.

“Fuh, fuck,” Jay says weakly, pressing his face against Mike’s and doing a high-pitched whine thing that sounds like a noise a human maybe shouldn’t be able to make. He’s also squeezing around Mike’s cock in crazed little pulses, as if his ass is reading and rereading the dimensions of the thing that’s currently inside it and keeps going back to the drawing board, rejecting the conclusion.

“Okay?” Mike asks, though he knows Jay doesn’t want to be asked this. He’s surprised by the hoarseness of his own voice, also surprised he hasn’t come yet, though this is different from having Jay’s mouth on his dick. The sensations are, what? More complicated? There’s something cozy and calmer about this, alongside the fact that his dick is throbbing and oozing precome into Jay already.

“Mmph,” Jay says, which isn’t really an answer, but he manages to blink his eyes open and exhale, meeting Mike’s eyes. Tears are leaking from Jay’s, and Mike makes a soft, embarrassing noise when he notices this, reaching up to wipe them away with his thumbs.

“I’ll fuck you hard in a minute,” Mike says, though he’s not sure he’ll make it that far. “If you want, still?”

“Ha-- hah,” Jay says, almost smiling. He sniffles, and when he flexes his shoulders and lets his head fall back onto the pillow Mike registers how tightly Jay’s legs are locked around him, possibly also leaving a bruise. “Wreck me, yeah, just. Not yet.”

“I know, not yet, I can see that.”

They kiss for a while. It feels different, even better, while they’re locked together like this, and Mike wants to say so, but he doesn’t want to stop kissing Jay. He is, however, increasingly aware of how urgently he needs to come, as if it’s a thing at the grocery store he forgot to buy. Now he needs to rush back and get that thing, because he’s starting to shake a little for not having it. 

“Jesus _christ_ ,” Jay says when he’s okay enough to talk. He gives Mike a shaky, sort of incomprehensible smile, his eyes still a little damp but no new tears falling. “That’s, you’re-- Ah. Can you even, even feel how deep you are?”

“Um. Yes.”

They both laugh at this response, which makes Jay groan and wince a little, but he’s smiling again when he opens his eyes. 

“I mean, ah-- Never mind.” Jay huffs and arches, gasps in an encouraging way. He squeezes around Mike in an experimental, nervous little pulse that almost finishes him off. “Fuck, yeah, just. Jesus.”

“Jesus,” Mike says in agreement. He’s going to come too fast, needs to keep talking. “You want, you want, uh-- Anything? A glass of water?”

Jay laughs hard at this, and groans again when it pinches him up even more tightly around Mike, but he doesn’t wince this time, just throws his head back and sighs, hips starting to twitch. 

“That’s the best thing I’ve ever fuh, felt, by the way,” Mike says, disliking that Jay can probably hear how close he is to shedding tears of gratitude. “The, you-- Laughing, uh. While I’m in you.”

“Yes,” Jay says, sharply, as if he has no time for Mike’s sentimentality right now, but he drags Mike down for a kiss that he seems to think Mike needs, licking at him softly. It doesn’t last very long before Jay pulls back and says, “Okay, s-so, fuck me, please, you can, you can move now--”

Mike doesn’t need to be told twice, is shaking all over from the effort of keeping still. He braces his elbows on either side of Jay’s ears and pulls his hips back, shunting them forward probably harder than he meant to but holy shit it feels like heaven and Jay is literally drooling for it, spit gathering at the corners of his lips from the sheer force of his moaning approval. Mike leans in to lick it up and thrusts again, drinking down the next moan, which Jay pushes directly into his mouth. Distantly, Mike thinks: when’s the last time I ate? He acutely doesn’t care, to the point that it’s almost funny, and it might be worth a belly laugh if he could do anything right now other than fuck into Jay and lap crazily at Jay’s open mouth, imagining that he’s literally feasting on the shameless, unhinged, filthy sounds Jay makes while he falls apart on Mike’s cock. 

“Mike,” Jay says, about a thousand times, as if he can’t breathe unless he keeps saying Mike’s name over and over, nodding and sweating and clenching around him like a madman, driving his ass up against every thrust now, his slick thighs still pressed so tight against Mike’s sides. “Muh, Mike, Mike, _Miiii_ ke--”

“You can come,” Mike says, pulling back to try to meet Jay’s eyes, but Jay is too far gone, eyes closed while he loses it completely, fucking himself onto Mike as if he’s got an itch in there he can’t quite scratch. “Jay, you can, you--”

Jay shouts Mike’s name in a broken cry and spills his load all over Mike’s stomach, which he’s been humping to the point of probably leaving a red chafe mark, though it’s not like Mike gives a shit about that or any other pain Jay wants to inflict upon him right now. When Jay comes the spasms of his ass around Mike’s dick go from good to critical, and Mike doesn’t even have brain enough left to figure out how long it takes after that to finally empty himself into Jay, just knows that coming in Jay’s ass feels like fulfilling his destiny, like this is an orgasm he’s been holding back for eight fucking years or maybe longer, and even after he’s drained himself completely he can’t stop fucking his squelching, overflowing load into Jay, though they’re both oversensitive and hissing as it becomes too much, returning to their human forms from whichever place they just ascended to.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Mike hears himself saying, not even sure if he’s talking to himself or to Jay. He goes still and gives Jay a panting, sloppy kiss that Jay is still too gone to really return, eyes closed and heaving breath so hot against Mike’s lips. Mike pulls out, slow, because Jay’s random twitching around his dick is painfully overstimulating at this point, and he feels like Jay must be in the same situation. He hovers over Jay for a moment after they’re disconnected, checking his face for signs of-- what? Regret? 

Jay gulps his breath and stares up at Mike. He looks amazed, frightened? As if he’s just come back from another planet? Arisen from the surface of the ocean floor? Basically like he doesn’t know where he is, exactly.

“Hey,” Mike says, slumping over onto his side, because his arms are shaking and jesus, has he ever been this tired? He gathers Jay against him and pulls him close, into his arms. Jay squirms feebly into this embrace and buries his face against Mike’s chest. “I gotcha,” Mike says, as if Jay was falling through space and time and Mike caught him, bringing him safely back to reality. “You’re okay. I think?”

“I’m--” Jay says, huffing against Mike’s chest, and it sounds like he’s going to argue that he’s _fine_ , that he’s had stuff up his ass before, as previously mentioned, but then he sighs like he doesn’t care to finish that thought and tucks his arm around Mike’s back, clinging. 

For a while they stay like that without speaking, Mike nuzzling at Jay’s hair, Jay taking deep breaths and sighing them out against Mike’s chest. Then Jay lifts his face and gives Mike a look that scares him at first, because what if Jay’s uncertain expression means he didn’t like that? 

“Well, Jay,” Mike says, stroking Jay’s sweat-damp hair back. “We did it.”

“We did it?” Jay says, eyebrows lifting. 

“Yes, we, you-- We conquered your virginity, together. The beast is slain.”

Jay tries not laugh. He mashes his lips together, flexes his legs against Mike’s, shakes his head and finally caves in, his chest bouncing against Mike’s and a beaming smile breaking onto his face. When they lock eyes again, Mike is sure and oh, god, thank god: Jay loved it, loves him, everything’s okay.

“I’m so fucking glad it was you,” Jay says, his eyes doing that glittery adoration thing that Mike loves, though he’ll be damned if he can say what color they are even now.

“So I did an okay job?”

Jay sort of whimpers in answer and grabs Mike’s face, nodding. The kiss he gives Mike feels like further confirmation: that was what Jay wanted, needed, something only Mike could give him, done right, at long last, and blissfully only just the beginning of everything else they’re gonna do together from now on.

“Is that your stomach growling?” Jay asks after they’ve kissed lazily for a while, Mike beginning to drift toward something like sleep. The sweat has dried on his skin and he’s a little cold even with Jay cuddled up against him, but too tired to even reach for the blankets that are folded at the end of the bed. 

“Mhm, yeah,” Mike says when his stomach makes another sound of gurgling complaint. “I can’t remember the last time I ate.”

“There’s some stuff in the kitchen, if you want. And can you get me a towel or something?” Jay reaches behind him and moans a little, feeling himself. “This is gonna wreck the sheets.” 

“This?” Mike thinks he knows what Jay means, and sits up to lean over Jay and look, suddenly wide awake because oh jesus yes, he’s talking about Mike’s come, which is leaking out of Jay steadily, and the sight of Jay’s well-fucked, come soaked ass is almost enough to get Mike hard again, his spent cock twitching wistfully. 

“Quit gawking,” Jay says, rolling onto his back and going red-faced, even after all they just did. It’s a relief, because Mike never wants Jay to stop blushing for him. “And don’t forget to wash your hands before you eat anything.”

“Duh,” Mike says. “I’m not that clueless about butt sex.”

He kisses Jay’s blushing cheek and gets out of bed, grabbing his boxers off the floor on the way out of the room. He’s normally shameless, but exploring an entirely new house while nude seems wrong somehow. 

He wanders around the house in his boxers, checking things out. The house is small and not particularly clean, dusty in a way that makes it seem like it’s been unlived in for a long time, with sandy dirt on the floor in the foyer and yellowed old blinds over the front windows. He supposes it’s probably still a good deal for whatever Jay paid to occupy it, considering it’s oceanfront and on a pirate hideout island. 

The kitchen is a little damp-smelling, but there’s also the scent of some lemony cleaning product in the air, and Mike’s heart grows three sizes for the idea of Jay scrubbing the countertops and the fridge while nervously awaiting his arrival, sipping from a glass of rum between tasks. The rum bottle is on the kitchen table, which is just an old card table with no chairs. There’s an empty glass beside the bottle, and a cardboard box with some as yet unpacked snacks inside: several types of jerky, bags of dried fruit, a loaf of bread. None of it has any brand names or commercial packaging, and Mike pictures Jay shopping for these things at some nearby black market with dirt floors, pirates trading guns at the booth beside the bakery stall. He wonders how much money Jay can possibly have left, between Len’s fee and presumably buying this house, and when he washes his hands with dish soap he peers out the window over the kitchen sink at the scene outside: almost no light pollution from the neighborhood, ridiculous amounts of stars overhead, palm trees waving against the strong wind.

There’s not much in the fridge, just a couple of limes, a glass bottle of milk and a stick of butter wrapped in paper. Mike eats some jerky and two slices of bread that he can’t put butter on because he can’t find a knife. He drinks a glass of milk. He’s still kind of hungry when he leaves the kitchen, but more tired than anything, and ansty to return to Jay in his freshly devirginized state. 

He finds the house’s single bathroom on the way back to the bedroom, which is one of five rooms total including the kitchen, pantry, bedroom and the furnitureless front room. In the bathroom there’s a small stack of new-looking towels sitting on the rim of the tub, which looks like it could use a thorough cleaning. Mike takes a piss and gives his dick a perfunctory cleaning-off with some hand soap before grabbing a washcloth from the top of the stack of towels and heading back to the bedroom. The functional plumbing is a relief. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, since the place also has electricity. There’s a single lamp in the bedroom, sitting on the end table, and Mike stands in the bedroom doorway admiring the scene that its glow illuminates for a moment: Jay asleep and hugging a pillow, rolled onto his stomach now, all fucked out, his thighs slick with Mike’s come, fucking perfect. 

Mike is almost choked up as he walks to the bed, thinking of how close they came to letting someone else see Jay like this, and how it’s still his fault. But he can dwell on his continuing guilt later. He kneels onto the bed and crawls toward Jay, who wakes up with a little huff and makes a different, softer noise when Mike uses the washcloth to clean him up, getting a little hard in the process. Jay reaches back to take over, yawning. 

“Did you buy this house?” Mike asks, climbing over Jay and onto what he supposes is his side of the bed.

“Uh-huh,” Jay says. He throws the washcloth onto the floor and turns onto his back, smiling sleepily when Mike pulls the blankets up over him. 

“So you’re broke again?” Mike says, making a queasy, apologetic face as he settles against Jay under the blankets. 

“Mhm, not quite. But almost. I paid my tax bill before I left the States, paid Len to get you, and had him put me in touch with the lady I bought this house from. The house cost pretty much everything I had left. I’ve got a couple thousand in cash stashed under this mattress, but that’s it. There’s some good news, though.”

“Yeah?”

“This island’s pretty much cut off from civilization, by design. A bunch of ex-criminals live here, it’s like a hideout.” Jay’s eyes light up as he tells Mike this, like he hopes Mike will be impressed.

Mike is impressed. He puts his arms around Jay and tugs him closer, kisses his forehead.

“Len mentioned that,” Mike says, rubbing Jay’s arm with his thumb. He’s not going to be able to stop idly touching Jay anytime soon, still in partial disbelief that he’s allowed to. “So, what? We’re gonna make money by doing more crimes?”

“No,” Jay says, and he laughs. “We’re terrible at crimes, Mike.”

“Ah. True.”

“But since they don’t have the internet here, or much modern technology, guess what?”

Mike groans, because he’s afraid he knows what Jay is about to say, though actually it is good news. Maybe the best news ever. 

“They still use VCRs and video tapes!” Jay says. “Like, widespread across the whole island. There’s a little video rental place in town, even. But you know what they don’t have, so far as I can tell?”

“Oh my god.” Mike is grinning. He can’t help himself. Jesus christ.

“A VCR repair shop!” 

Mike cackles and presses his face into Jay’s gloriously sex-wrecked hair, shaking his head. Jay is laughing a little, too, and sort of petting Mike’s chest hair as if he admires it. 

“Maybe with the money I have left, we can rent a little storefront in town,” Jay says. “Or we could just use this house as our shop. I dunno. It’ll work out, though. I have a good feeling.”

Mike can’t imagine ever having anything _but_ good feelings from here on out, now that they’re together in the way they should have been since the start, this way that allows them to paw at each other under the blankets and make out sleepily, as if either of them has the energy for round two just yet. It’s been a long day.

They both attempt to stay awake despite their profound, bone-deep exhaustion, and Mike assumes Jay is doing it for the same reason he is, because he’s afraid that if he sleeps he might wake up and realize this was all just a really wonderful dream. Their need to sleep is more powerful than this fear, and Mike isn’t sure which of them passes out first, but the sleep that he personally drops into is the deepest and most serene of his life, a total respite from everything, including dreams. It feels like a spiritual experience that leaves him cleaner and lighter, which is actually what fucking Jay was like, also.

Mike doesn’t wake until morning, and when he does he’s still in the house on the cliff, the bedroom filled with light that pours in through the now open curtains on the windows that face the ocean. At first he thinks Jay is gone, but when he sits up in a developing panic he sees Jay sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, wearing boxer briefs and a t-shirt. He must have been watching Mike sleep, and something must have happened, something bad, because he looks like he’s trying not to cry.

“What?” Mike asks. He looks toward the bedroom doorway, half-expecting cops to be standing there waiting to arrest him. There’s nobody, though. He looks back to Jay. “What’s wrong, what happened?”

“Nothing, I--” Jay clears his throat and looks down at his hands. He’s holding the letter Mike wrote to him in jail. “I read it,” he says.

“Oh,” Mike says, cringing. He barely remembers what was in it now, never did allow himself to reread it. All he knows is that it was embarrassing as fuck. “Uh, sorry. I was unhinged at the time.”

“Sorry?” Jay boggles at him, his eyes clearing of everything but surprise for a moment. “Why would you be--” He laughs a little and folds the letter back up, crawls over toward Mike and reaches across him to carefully put it back on the end table. Still hunched over Mike, he brings his face close to Mike’s and nudges Mike’s cheek with his nose. “No one’s ever written anything like that for me before,” he says, mumbling this as if he’s embarrassed to admit it, eyes averted.

“Sure they have!” Mike says, gathering Jay into his arms. Jay collapses bonelessly onto him, curling his legs up close to Mike’s chest and hiding his face against Mike’s neck. “You got tons of messages like that,” Mike says, stroking Jay’s back. He’s shaking a little, aw. Fucking Jay, still unable to understand that he’s the most loveable person on the planet, literally famous for it now. “If we had the internet here you could go on Twitter and see them piling up even now, probably a hundred love declarations every hour--”

“That’s not the same,” Jay says, lifting his face. “And you know it.” 

Jay’s eyes aren’t red-rimmed now but he does look a little scared, as if Mike handing him that lunatic screed of a love confession broke through some protective barrier and now Jay is a raw nerve in his arms, vulnerable to anything. 

“I know,” Mike says, because of course that bullshit on Twitter is not the same. He strokes Jay’s arm, could write another two pages just about how much he loves the soft blond hairs there. “I meant every word,” he says, his eyes still locked on Jay’s. “I can’t fucking live without you.”

Jay makes the same pained little noise he made over the phone at the jail before running away, only now it sounds like relief and he doesn’t run, just grabs Mike’s face and kisses him, possibly to keep from crying, because his lips are shaking pretty hard against Mike’s. The kissing seems to help, because after they’ve done it for a while Jay is grinning, blushing, also getting hard inside his boxer briefs.

“I was going out of my mind when I wrote that,” Mike says, pulling Jay into his lap. Jay straddles him, already breathing hard, his boner jabbing Mike’s gut. “Would have sold my goddamn soul to get out of there and get to you.” Mike squeezes Jay’s ass as he says so, staring up at him with legitimate wonder. He still can’t believe he’s here, that he gets to have this, have Jay. 

“Please don’t sell your soul,” Jay says. He takes Mike’s face in his hands and strokes his thumbs over the stubble on his cheeks. “I like your soul. In fact, I love it.”

“Well, good, ‘cause it’s yours for fucking eternity.”

Jay laughs, then moans when Mike slides both hands inside the waistband of his briefs so he can squeeze Jay’s bare ass cheeks. Mike grunts in approval, caveman-like. He didn’t spend enough time just grabbing Jay’s ass last night, and it’s fucking wonderful, fits perfectly in his hands. 

“Jesus, man,” Mike says, overwhelmed by opportunity, his fingertips already sneaking in between Jay’s ass cheeks. “The things I want to do to you.” 

“Like what?” Jay asks. He’s smirking, daring Mike to try to shock him. 

“Eat your ass until you’re crying,” Mike says, which actually does make Jay blush, ha. “Ditto for spanking it. Oh, and I want you to, like, knock me onto my back and ride my dick, just. All day long. For as long you want. For the rest of your life!”

Jay throws his head back and laughs. He’s humping Mike’s stomach again. The fact that he seems to do this on autopilot, by default whenever they’re this close, is Mike’s new favorite thing about life.

“Okay,” Jay says when he tips forward again, putting his forehead against Mike’s, still humping. “You can-- I can do that.” 

“Which one?” Mike asks, and he pinches Jay’s ass cheeks when he snickers at the expression of thrilled bewilderment on Mike’s face.

“The riding one,” Jay says. “‘Cause, um--” He puts his mouth against Mike’s ear, “I’ve been up for hours and I want you in me again, please.” 

“Nngh,” Mike says, or something like that, and he tackles Jay to the bed, kissing him, amazed. So this is how it’s going to be: he’s going to get floored over and over by how much Jay is everything he ever wanted, like motherfucking _made_ for him, down to every detail, and wonder again why it took him so long to realize this, then just accept that he has it now, so what does it matter? Until the next thing that restarts the cycle of reeling gratitude, anyway.

Mike has had this fantasy for so long, probably even longer as a subconscious thing that his body wanted before his mind could name it: to be spread out on a bed doing absolutely nothing but lying there watching with drooling, almost teary appreciation while Jay bounces on his cock over and over, his head thrown back because he loves it, because Mike is buried in him so fucking deep, and Jay can’t get enough of it, can’t stop slamming himself down onto Mike again and again while whining and rubbing his hand over his chest, until he leans forward so Mike can’t do the chest rubbing and nipple pinching for him. 

And it’s even better than Mike dared to dream it would be, such that even when he comes (too soon, dammit), he lets Jay keep bouncing on him until he finishes and shoots all over Mike’s chest, though Mike’s dick is way too sensitive and it’s almost unbearable to let Jay keep riding it by the end, but then the end comes and Jay pulls off him fast, like in sympathy, and then they’re kissing and clutching at each other and laughing into each other’s mouths a little, not needing to say out loud that they’re laughing about how stupidly, almost unbelievably good that was. 

They doze off together briefly, stretched horizontal across the bed, Jay’s head tucked under Mike’s chin and Mike’s fingers pushed into Jay’s hair, his thumb moving back and forth over the short, spiky bits. When Mike wakes from his thin nap just a few minutes later he’s certain that he’s never before in his entire life been as hungry as he is right now.

“Who will cut your hair now?” Mike asks when Jay sits up and tries to put it back in order with his fingers. “Me?”

Jay snorts. “Um, no. I’m sure I can find some ex-con barber on the island.” 

“Can we find some real food first? I’m on the verge of starving to death, I just realized.”

Jay moans sympathetically and leans down to kiss Mike’s stomach. As if he actually likes it! Which is so fucking weird, but Mike is not about to argue that he shouldn’t.

They get some cash from under the mattress and head into town on foot. Jay tells him they can buy a bike, or maybe even a motorbike, once they’ve got their VCR repair business established and have made a little money. Mike normally hates walking anywhere, but it’s not so bad in this temperate climate, with the tropical breezes and the sunshine and so forth. 

The town is suitably scummy in an entertaining way, oceanside by a big dock with a variety of ships anchored in the harbor. Some look like legit pirate ghost ships, while others are enormous shiny yachts. Mike supposes those are the white collar criminals, and he’s not sure he wants them here, but whatever. There’s something that looks like a Chinese junk ship, a dude in a painted canoe, and out in the distance what looks like a partially surfaced submarine. 

“This is fucking wild,” Mike says, speaking with his mouth full. They’re sitting at a taco stand near the harbor, and Mike basically hasn’t stopped shoving fish tacos in his mouth since his ass hit the bench seat at their table. 

“Yep,” Jay agrees, also barely pausing in chewing to remark on the harbor activity they’re both staring at. He swallows and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I wasn’t even sure this place would be real. Was afraid I was just being robbed and human trafficked when I got on that plane with that lady.”

“Jesus!” Mike says, scooting closer to Jay on the bench seat, so that their hips just touch. “Don’t risk your life for me again, ever. I forbid it.”

“Don’t give me occasion to, and I won’t!”

Jay smirks and drinks from his beer bottle, swallowing big gulps from it while holding Mike’s gaze with that smug little grin still there in his eyes, and Mike wonders what the PDA policy is in pirate-ville. He already can’t stand to not be crowding even closer to Jay and, like, licking him near constantly. He returns to his fish taco instead, because regardless of how the pirates feel about it, Jay is on record for hating any public displays of affection. He wants that shit to stay private, which Mike can respect. It’s also even dirtier and more satisfying that way, seeing Jay let his guard down only for him. 

They shop for a few things in town and head home when they can’t comfortably carry any more bags. Mike gets misty-eyed when he catches himself thinking of the stubby little green house that way, as home, and again when Jay gives him a key. 

The rest of their day is spent cleaning, which is less romantic but necessary, if disgusting at times. When they’re finished the house is as sparkling clean as it’s ever gonna get, some of the parts that Mike was assigned to work on gone over again by Jay, who is apparently a germaphobe despite letting Mike come in his ass twice and not yet having taken a shower, so far as Mike can tell. They take a shower together when the house cleaning is done, both soaked in sweat from working all day, and they use the occasion as an excuse to exchange blow jobs, this time of the to-completion and swallowing variety. Jay doesn’t choke, but he coughs a little after, and it’s fucking cute.

They take the bottle of rum down to the beach at sunset and sit on the rocks sipping from it and watching the sun sink toward the horizon, talking about repair shop promotion ideas. Mike never thought he’d be this happy to have another fucking VCR repair job, but now it seems ideal, because Jay is here. Everything does, actually, for the same reason.

“You literally rode me into the sunset,” Mike says when he’s a little drunk, his arm tucked around Jay and his nose pressed into Jay’s hair.

“Yep,” Jay says. “Didn’t I tell you I would?”

“Uhhh, no? When?”

“I said, ‘we’ll figure it out, Mike, we always do.’ Or something like that.”

“Oh, sure.” 

Mike takes a deep breath full of the smell of Jay’s hair and squints out at the sun as it blazes out, throwing up wide beams of orange light even after it’s disappeared behind the long straight line of the ocean’s horizon. He’s experiencing something unfamiliar, a kind of worrying contentment. It comes back around to just regular contentment when Jay takes his hand and rubs slow, random circles onto his palm with his thumb, still looking out at the ocean and smiling faintly at nothing in particular.

This feeling is unfamiliar but not totally alien, because Mike has seen it in movies. He just didn’t know it could be real, at least not for him. 

Feels like a happily ever after.

(And, sure, maybe after many years of domestic bliss on the island, Overlord Carol of BioTron _does_ end up coming for Jay's soul, also for Mike's, and maybe she _does_ seemingly possess them for a brief time, but what she doesn't know is that no amount of reeducation and bio-engineered super soldier upgrades can contend with the combination of undying true love and the friendship of a martial arts-wielding warlock, and that with the help of Len (and Rich, strangely enough), her loyal-seeming servants Mike and Jay will actually co-start a revolution from within BioTron, take down the company, and go on to save the world by destroying the Time Fortress and defeating Carol in an epic battle for the very soul of the mortal universe.)

(But that's another story.)

 

 

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't share my embarrassingly complete knowledge of Half in the Bag character lore, [this is Carol](https://youtu.be/7olh2I0dN7w?t=1792)! She's real! Also I'm now tempted to write a 60k sci fi story about exactly how they escape from her clutches. I probably won't?? But who can say. 
> 
> Thanks so much to all who read this far! It was a blast to write. Hope you enjoyed.


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